It's silly and even stupid, but the sci-fi spoof Galaxy Quest is also really funny, which has to count for a lot, especially when most of the other holiday movie fare is so serious.
The idea for Quest, which opens tomorrow, is what Hollywood calls 'high concept,' code for low-brow entertainment.
A bunch of hack actors who used to play astronauts on a TV show are now reduced to status as has-beens who squabble with fans, and each other, at creepy conventions where they are worshipped as gods by nerds. Star Trek anyone?
At one convention, the unpopular idiot actor who used to play the commander (Tim Allen sends up William Shatner) is approached by real aliens to help them save their people.
The aliens have mistaken the old Galaxy Quest TV episodes as "historical documents" and figure the earthlings, even the drunken commander, can help.
So off they all go, sucked up into space and plunked down on a working replica of the spaceship that they only pretended to fly in the show. Now they have to battle the bad guys in it.
The Earth team consists of Allen and his TV co-stars, a cleverly cast bunch. They're played by Sigourney Weaver (in a self-referencing Alien send-up), Alan Rickman (mocking both Leonard Nimoy and his own background as a Shakespearean-trained British actor), Tony Shalhoub (who is hysterically droll) and Daryl Mitchell (as the grown-up version of the child navigator on the TV show's ship). A poseur fan (played wonderfully by Sam Rockwell) gets caught up, too.
The aliens, the lovable ones who naively recruit the Earthlings, are led by a creature called Mathesar (played by Enrico Colantoni), who oddly recalls Andy Kaufman as Latka.
Special effects help populate space with shape-shifters and a fantastic line-up of monsters. It's all done in good fun. Nothing here is too scary or gross or violent for most children, although there are space battles and death scenes, as well as sexually suggestive situations.
The cast of Galaxy Quest -- the movie, not the fictional TV show -- is better than the movie itself. The work of director Dean Parisot (Home Fries) is a little sloppy.
Because Parisot, operating from a screenplay by David Howard and Robert Gordon, is not on top of his game yet, the movie starts sluggishly. So much so that you have to have the patience that it will all pay off eventually. Which it does.
Galaxy Quest is a soft satire, yet anyone who grew up with the original Star Trek -- or Lost In Space or any of those shows -- will see the humour instantly.
It also plays well to youngsters weaned on re-runs or fans of The Next Generation. In short, here's a silly movie safe enough that kids can take their parents and everyone can laugh.
(This film is rated PG)
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