The 9 Best Movies of 1986

 

9. The Karate Kid Part II

The Karate Kid's first (and what should've been last) sequel picks up immediately where the first movie ended. In the wake of Daniel LaRusso's victory at the All Valley Karate Tournament, the runner-up. Johnnie Lawrence, is chastised and assaulted by his sensei, John Kreese, for placing second. Mr. Miyagi defeats him without breaking a sweat and all's well that ends well...temporarily. 

Six months later, Ali has not only wrecked Daniel's car, which was a birthday present from Miyagi, she's also dumped him for a college guy. Ali had no apparent character flaws in the original film but you know what they say: "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is." 

Anyway, a letter explaining that Mr. Miyagi's father is on his deathbed sends the former back to his native Okinawa and, needing a distraction from his girl troubles, Daniel tags along. Miyagi is subsequently reunited with his dad after 40 years; he's also reunited with a lost love, Yukie. Daniel, on the other hand, meets a new love, Kumiko, who happens to be Yukie's niece.

This time around, Mr. Miyagi's love triangle, not Daniel's, causes problems. You see, Miyagi fled Okinawa after declaring his love for Yukie. Unfortunately for him, she was already arranged to be married to Miyagi's best friend, Sato. The insult prompted Sato to challenge his former friend to mortal combat. And not wanting to kill his boy, Miyagi kicked rocks. 

SPOILER ALERT

Daniel gets into trouble as well. Sato's nephew, Chozen, pressures the All Valley champ into a deathmatch as well. Because he's the title character, he wins. But keep in mind, Daniel has roughly 10 months of karate training (two months at the YMCA, and eight with Miyagi) at this point. It's established that Sato has trained U.S. troops in the art of the empty hand for decades. He's also trained his nephew so well that the latter has become an instructor himself. Does it make sense that Chozen would (or could) lose this particular fight?    

8. Top Gun

Back in the 80s, MTV not only played actual music videos but the then rock-focused network was supremely relevant -- influential even. In fact, television shows and a certain pop song laden feature film about naval pilots used the youth-targeted cable station's quick-cut music and visuals formula to become the highest-grossing movie of 1986, snagging an Oscar in the process. For better or worse, Top Gun epitomizes the idea of style over substance, and clearly that cinematic philosophy was exactly what moviegoers wanted in 1986. However, the film does provide an important lesson. Instead of overcoming some bigger, stronger foe, Maverick matures, learns from failure and figures out that being an asshole isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Capitalizing on the cold war anti-Russia paranoia of the Reagan era and following the basic premise of Iron Eagle and Firefox, Top Gun is essentially a slick music video album filled with imagery ripped straight out of a teenaged American male's dorm room. Jets? Check. Motorcycles? Check. And lest you think that this film was only made for guys, the half-ass love story, men in uniform and slow motion game of shirtless volleyball was aimed squarely at Becky and Karen. 

Hell, their bedroom walls had been covered with posters of Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer since before the movie was released. Though he's commonly perceived to be the movie's secondary "villain", Iceman's criticisms of Maverick are completely justified. And FYI, Mav's love-interest, Charlotte Blackwood, was based on a real person, civilian instructor Christine Fox. This thing's star-studded: Tom Skerritt, Michael Ironside, Adrian Pasdar, Anthony Edwards, Meg Ryan, Clarence Gilyard, Rick Rossovich. Anyone familiar with 1980s film and television has seen plenty of them. As with other 80s hits, the filmmakers called on soundtrack guru Kenny Loggins to deliver a megahit theme song for the proceedings. Following in the steps of A Star is Born's I Believe in Love, Caddyshack's I'm Alright and Footloose's, well, Footloose, Danger Zone took Top Gun into the stratosphere -- Big Pun intended. This musical flick about fighter pilots propelled Ray Ban sales through the roof and tricked countless guys into enlisting in the armed services to boot. Though, without a war for the remainder of the decade, even the few who actually made it into a cockpit never fought it out with their Russian counterparts. In 1985, Tom Cruise starred in Legend for director Ridley Scott. A year later, he headlined Top Gun for his brother, Tony. Nineteen years later, he'd reunite with fellow Fighter Weapons School competitor Tim Robbins in a pretty decent remake of War of the Worlds. 

And while Maverick was far from Cruise's first starring role, it was the template for a particular film persona which would reappear with small tweaks several more times throughout his career. Such as, you ask? Well, there was the cocky young pool hustler, the cocky young bartender, the cocky young stock car racer, the cocky young sports car hustler with daddy issues, the cocky young pickup artist with daddy issues, the cocky young millionaire playboy and of course, the cocky young espionage agent. 

Top Gun left us with burning questions like: How long will the Navy put up with Maverick's bullsh*t? Will he ever truly come to terms with his father's legacy? And how the f**k did Tim Robbins' tall ass fit into one of those cockpits? At any rate, 36 years later, the US and Russia hate each other again and Duke Mitchell's kid is flying back into theaters. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. By the way, the Oscar that Top Gun took home was for Best Original Song -- naturally. 

7. Big Fun in the Big Town

6. Back to School

5. Ferris Bueller's Day Off

While The Breakfast Club was all about being stuck in detention -- on Saturday, no less -- Ferris Bueller's Day Off heads in the opposite direction and celebrates cutting school. And embracing life -- and youth -- while you still can.

4. Big Trouble in Little China

3. Heartbreak Ridge

While Ellen Ripley worked with leathernecks in space on movie screens in '86, Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway led a platoon of Marines right here on Earth. It's the hard-bitten gunny's job to mold a band of misfit jarheads into hardcore killing machines, all while trying to piece his marriage and career back together.

2. Aliens

As harrowing an ordeal as the events that transpired in Alien was for Ripley, the follow-up continues her suffering almost from the start, as she learns that her daughter has died during the 57 years that she was adrift in cryosleep. 

Aliens managed to accomplish the Herculean task of competing with it's predecessor by not even trying. While the original Alien is a horror film, it's sequel is a military/action movie. And come on, who didn't try that knife-between-the-fingers trick, albeit at a much slower pace? 

Aliens is just hands-down the best showcase of marines in space -- period.  

It features one of the most visually-striking spacecraft ever seen, in the marines' U.S.S. Sulaco. The rest of the military vehicles, such as the APC and the dropship, aren't too shabby either. Much of the movie was clearly inspired by Robert Heinlein's 1968 novel, Starship Troopers (for instance, the cargo-loader exoskeleton utilized by Ripley). But, Aliens is way better than the movie adaptation of that book -- which was released 11 whole years after Cameron's movie. Check this out: Director Paul Verhoeven hated what he considered the book's pro-war and fascism stance, so he made the movie as a satire of its own source material. How sick is that? Speaking of films influenced by Starship Troopers, Bill Paxton hilariously returned to his future infantry-versus-aliens roots 18 years later in 2014's Edge of Tomorrow as a squad commander who wouldn't have cut Private Hudson (his Aliens character) one bit of slack.

You know, given the Weyland-Yutani corporation's continued and extreme disregard for human life, maybe the movie should've been titled, The Business-Empire Strikes Back. Maybe not. The biggest takeaway from Aliens: Never trust a big corporation.

1. Transformers: The Movie

Contrary to popular misconception, neither Shia LaBeouf nor Michael Bay has any connection whatsoever to the first Transformers film. Nor is it a combination of live-action and CGI. The first and best big-screen depiction of the Autobot/Decepticon conflict is rendered in old-fashioned, two-dimensional anime and premiered way back in 1986. Despite the format, its the darkest and most mature of the Transformers films to date. Transformers also bears the distinction of being the final film for both Scatman Crothers and Orson Welles. Crothers and Welles gave vocal performances alongside other well-known figures such as Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Judd Nelson, Eric Idle and radio legend Casey Kasem.

The Transformers' initial on-screen incarnation was a daily television series which aired from 1984-1987. The animation style employed in the film, like everything else, is a vast improvement over the one used for the series. The theme song even gets a hard rock update from the LA band Lion. Even for those who don't like hair bands (a group that includes me), it sounds great and is further evidence that the filmmakers took the project seriously. The film's signature song, "The Touch", by Stan Bush, was initially produced for the 1986 hit, Cobra, starring Sylvester Stallone. "The Touch" is also the song main character Dirk Diggler records for his demo tape in the 1997 movie, Boogie Nights.

The Transformers, which is based directly on the animated television series, picks up 20 years after the events of the show -- in the distant future of 2005 (How about that?). In a departure from the series, which was set largely on Earth, the film takes place mainly in space and on other planets. There is a vast leap in maturity on display here -- in more ways than one. For one thing, while the film is not without moments of comedic relief (much of it dark comedy), the tone is astoundingly serious for an animated feature. You'll also notice that Spike Witwicky (the same last name used in the Shia LaBeouf movies), one of the few human regulars on the televison series and teenaged during the seasons preceding the film, is now a grown man with a son. Spike's father, Sparkplug (another series regular), is never seen or mentioned. Lastly, the film whole-heartedly embraces the premise of the Transformers concept: the Autobots and Decepticons are engaged in a war. A war that claims lives -- on both sides.

Originally Posted 1/10/21