Reviews

A beautifully-crafted film, Galaxy Quest is a love letter to sf fans of all sorts everywhere. The characters are perfectly drawn, the story is well-written, and there's the right amount of goshwow to make the whole thing work perfectly. And it's funny as hell in all the right spots.

Tim Allen is amazing. He's got his Shatneroid character down perfectly. He's a vain, pompous clown who finds out what a laughingstock he's become, and when he gets a chance to redeem himself, he pounces on it.

Sigourney Weaver is a delight. Sexy without trying, her character Gwen DeMarco is as far from Ripley as you can get. Alan Rickman is flawless as Alexander Dane, massively talented Shakespearean actor who's been stuck in this Spockish role for years because he played it too well. Darryl Mitchell is great as Tommy "Laredo" Webber, and Sam Rockwell is hilarious as Guy, the hack actor stuck in the middle of something that scares him silly.

The two actors who really stand out are Tony Shalhoub and Enrico Colantoni. Tony plays Fred Kwan with understated glee, while Colantoni plays Commander Mathesar with a smiling earnestness that makes you firmly believe everything he's saying.

The supporting cast is incredibly talented. Robin Sachs is perfect as Sarris, Patrick Breen essays his role as Quellek beautifully, and Missy Pyle amazes as Laliari.

But it's still Tim Allen's movie above all else, and he makes the most of it.

A final note: this movie wouldn't have worked nearly as well if not for the production design work of four of the greatest artistic talents in science fiction: Simon Bisley, Brom, Wayne Barlowe and the lengendary Berni Wrightson. Barlowe is an expert in xenobiology, and designed the Thermian's native form. Wrightson's quite possibly the best horror illustrator of all time, and Sarris and his minions are his work.

My favorite moment in the film? the point where Alan Rickman gets his first look at the NSEA Protector II for the first time... his look of astonishment is a joy to behold.

Like The Last Starfighter, this is a popcorn movie with a message. See it with your kids.

As I write this, Dennis the Menace is running on cable in the background. I'm half-listening to it, and I'm not watching it. It's that uninvolving.

Great actors, a talented director and writer still can't save a bad script. John Hughes, fairly fresh from Home Alone, had contractual obligations to fulfill, and adapted Hank Ketchum's classic comic strip for film. But studio bosses like to meddle, and I suspect there was a lot of "change this, change that, it'll make more money" sorta stuff that flew around during production.

It boils down to this. Walter Matthau. Chris Lloyd, Joan Plowright, and everyone in this film is wasting their time. The whole movie is pointless and dumb, and if you really want to watch Dennis at his best, go find the old black & white television episodes from the late Fifties. Even all the Oscar-caliber talent in this thing couldn't save it from mediocrity.

Recommendations. Want to see these actors at their best? Fine. Here's what to rent:

For Walter Matthau, The Odd Couple. For Joan Plowright, I Love You To Death. For Chris Lloyd, Back To The Future, all three of them. For Paul Winfield, Roots. Better yet, the Star Trek episode "Darmok". and for this film's director, Nick Castle, The Last Starfighter.

Just stay away from this mess. Maybe that way it'll end up buried in the vaults somewhere and vanish into well-deserved obscurity.

Okay. First, I'm a science fiction fan. Have been for forty years. One of the first books I ever read was Louis Slobodkin's "The Spaceship Under The Apple Tree". So now you know how far back I go, just how deep the roots run.

One of the first movies I saw was "The Music Man", so my fondness for Robert Preston goes back almost as far as my love of sf. You can imagine my delight when I saw the ads for this. Bob Preston in an sf film? Cool!

I had no idea it would be one of his last.

The Last Starfighter is going to be regarded as a classic by future generations for a lot of reasons. It was the first sf film to use extensive CGI, and use them exclusively for the space scenes, it was one of Robert Preston's last two films, and was one of the only film appearances of the great Meg Wylie, a Star Trek veteran, who takes an almost nonexistent role and makes it memorable here.

I doubt there's anybody who hasn't seen this, but...

S P O I L E R W A R N I N G ! ! ! ! !









One of the best things about TLS is its simple insistence on a single message: if you believe in yourself, you can change the world. You can be more than you are. And as bad as things look, they do get better. Your chance for greatness will come. And when it does, you'd better grab it with both hands and hold tight.

Early in the film, after Alex is forced to pass up a day at the lake with Maggie, he laments to Otis that all he does is patch old fuse panels and fix rickety plumbing. And Otis tells him his chance will come. When it does come, in the form of Centauri and the Rylan Star League, Alex backs off because he's afraid of the danger involved. After all, he's just a kid from a trailer park...

"If that's what you think, then that's all you'll ever be", barks Centauri. And Alex is left to chew on that.

The entire point of the film is right there. It doesn't matter if you're rich as Croesus or a kid from a trailer park in the middle of tumbleweeds and tarantulas. If you believe in yourself, and you're willing to take a chance to better yourself, you can accomplish anything.

Get this movie on DVD. Grab your wife and kids. Sit down and enjoy a good story with a happy ending. And forgive an old man's preachy review of this fine film.

One of the best films ever made, there's something here for everyone.

Bill Goldman's book has always been a favorite of mine, but I didn't think it was filmable without major surgery. Who better to perform the needed cuts than Goldman himself?

Firstly, the framing story is wonderful. Peter Falk as the elderly grandfather to Fred Savage gives one of his finest performances, and Fred plays perfectly off him.

The real story is impossible to describe. There aren't enough superlatives. There's not a single wrong move made by any of the actors. Andre "The Giant" Roussimoff is a great big teddybear, Cary Elwes is the perfect pirate prince, and Mandy Patinkin is flawless as the vengeance- driven Inigo. Chris Sarandon is appropriately sleazy as Humperdinck, and Wallace Shawn is a hoot as Vizzini, the nasty little Sicilian.

The two standouts are Nicholas Guest, whose character of Count Tyrone Rugen is a precise blend of two of the greatest movie villains of all time: Henry Daniel and Conrad Veidt. He's oily, sneaky and evil, and manages it without twirling his mustache and cackling nastily.

And Robin Wright, in her first film role, is luminous. I fell in love with her the instant I saw her.

As to the story itself, if there are echoes of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" here, it's because of the writer, who loved those characters so much that they couldn't help but leak into the story.

All told, this is one of my favorite films, and I can't recommend it highly enough. See this one over and over again. Make your kids watch it. Don't tell them it's a kissing story, though...