Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1986 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1986 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1986 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around, it’s Jan. 17, 1986, and we’re off to see Adventures of the American Rabbit, Adventures of Mark Twain, Clan of the Cave Bear, Iron Eagle, The Longshot, and Troll.
Adventures of the American Rabbit
I have no idea how I had never once heard of this movie in my life, but after watching it, I highly doubt I will ever hear of it again.
Robert Rabbit (Barry Gordon) is visited by a mysterious old rabbit shortly after his birth that continues to show up throughout his childhood with vague references to his destiny. Eventually it is revealed Robert can turns into the roller skating hero, “American Rabbit” who is capable of heroic deeds and can stop the evil plans of a gang of jackals.
Somehow Toei Animation got dragged into this mess, and I have no clue how. The animation is sub-par. The plot is not remotely entertaining or engaging.
if this had come out in 1976 it would make a bit more sense with how patriotic everything was, but instead we ended up with it in 1986 for no apparent reason.
The Adventures of Mark Twain
This was another film I had never heard of, but at least I enjoyed this one more. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer sneak aboard Mark Twain’s airship as he prepares to intercept Halley’s Comet. Becky Thatcher follows the two boys on board, and all three end up on a somewhat psychedelic journey with the famous author.
A feature-length claymation movie? I’m on board just at the mention of it. It’s a rather odd concept at the heart that Tom, Huck, and Becky are real in the story, but it works and makes for an interesting retrospective on Twain’s career.
I wasn’t always in love with some of the design choices in the film, but I still enjoyed it and would give it a recommendation.
The Clan of the Cave Bear
There were multiple books in this series. After watching this one, I’m not surprised we have never seen more of them.
Alya, a Cro-Magnon girl, loses her mother in an earthquake and is taken in as a child by a clan of Neanderthals. She is raised in their ways despite being a girl from “The Others.” She ends up breaking numerous taboos of the clan such as learning to use a weapon and disgracing the new Clan leader in combat. She eventually sets out on her own to find more of her kind, leaving her half-Neanderthal son behind.
I hated this movie. Not for Daryl Hannah, I actually thought she did a pretty good job with her role as Alya, but the story was just bonkers. I had heard for years about how ‘realistic’ it was. Oh, so Neanderthals somehow had a communication system to let each other know when a big Clan meetup was happening? And we’ll just ignore how the Clan of the Cave Bear had just moved at the start of the film to a random cave? Did they call all of the other clans and give them their new address?
One thing I have to admit is pretty specific to me. I grew up in the costume industry and was around special effects makeup artists a lot in my youth. I knew how to do things like make bullet holes look realistic by the age of 11. Some of the Cro-Magnon makeup in this film was laughable at times. Blend lines are not difficult to do. Anyone worth their salt can do them. Clearly these folks were not worth their salt.
The Clan of the Cave Bear can stay in its cave and never be seen again.
Iron Eagle
This is an awful movie. It’s just… yeah. It’s awful.
Doug Masters (Jason Gedrick) wants to follow in his dad’s footsteps and become an Air Force pilot. He gets his wish unexpectedly when his father is shot down and taken captive. With the government unwilling to step in, Doug recruits Colonel Charles “Chappy” Sinclair (Louis Gossett Jr.) to jump in a stolen fighter jet and the two of them will go and get Doug’s dad on their own.
Look, I don’t expect movies to reflect realism at all times. But if your film is set in the real world, then you need to at least follow some sort of logic. The idea that Doug and his other teenage buddies can pull this off doesn’t come off as “cool” or like some cunning plan, it comes off that 99.99% of adults are morons and it’s super easy to steal military equipment.
From the premise to some of the action scenes, the film is laughable in scope and presentation. I remembered not being that in love with the film when I saw it back in ’86, and I like it even less now.
The Longshot
A harmless comedy that forgets to be funny for long stretches.
Dooley (Tim Conway) and his three friends are down-on-their-luck gamblers who want to score just want to score one big win. When he learns of someone willing to drug a horse, they gamblers feel they are finally in line for their score, but, of course, nothing goes quite according to plan.
Teaming up Conway with Harvey Korman should have been a recipe for a great comedy, but what you end up with is just a middle-of-the-road one. There are some truly amusing moments (the cookout in the car scene gave me a good laugh), but then the complete implausibility of a lot of what was happening was just getting to be too much.
Conway and Korman were cornerstones of The Carol Burnett Show, but putting them in something structured like a movie was just too constraining for their talents, and it showed.
Troll
The first time the characters introduced themselves, boy did I do a double-take.
Harry Potter Sr. (Michael Moriarty) moves his family into an apartment building in San Francisco, unaware it is about to become the center of a long-standing magical war. Wendy Anne (Jenny Beck) is kidnapped by a Troll, and it ends up falling to her older brother, Harry Potter Jr. (Noah Hathaway), to team up with a fairy princess and put a stop to the evil plans.
As I said, I did a double-take at the names.
The movie is silly as can be, but I actually found myself entertained by it. A lot of that is due to Moriarty’s deadpan performance as the dad who becomes increasingly befuddled by everything that is happening around his family.
The script was a bit of fun, the performances were fine, and it was just a harmless little contemporary fantasy to pass 90 minutes.
1986 Movie Reviews will continue on Jan. 24, 2026, with My Chauffeur.
