An engaging, if minor, chunk of science-fantasy from the Disney studio. After a promising beginning, with a boy recovering from an accident to find strangers living at his home (could be anything, but in fact he's lost eight years from his life without himself ageing), the film's brightest moments come in fits and starts. The boy has been (in 1978) on a mission to a distant planet, one of whose ships now (in 1986) needs his help. This leads the film into a brief section of its greatest charm, as the boy examines the specimens of alien life the spaceship has gathered from various planets, including a moving sludge of mud (with a cold) that eats anything. Parents may wonder about people (in the film) who let children of eight and 12 wander home through woods in the dark. Max the alien, for those struggling to recognise the voice, is played by Paul Reubens (alias Pee-wee Herman), here acting under the pseudonym of Paul Mall.

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