By Cynthia W. Gentry, © 2000 by Cynthia W. Gentry, published on Dailygossip.com, February 2000.
Darlings, heres a bit of advice, freely given from moi to toi. Never, never let anyone talk you into renting Paul Verhoevens Starship Troopers, even if you are, as I was, snowbound in the mountains with no means of escape. But if you are subjected to this vile use of celluloid, I have the perfect antidote for you: Galaxy Quest. A delightful spoof of sci fi conventions (both literally and figuratively), this film so entertained me that it put thoughts of my dates magnificent biceps right out of my mind. And that, darlings, is an accomplishment.
To be perfectly honest with you (and when am I not?), the previews for Galaxy Quest left me distinctly underwhelmed. But then I succumbed to the rave reviews of my dear friend and style maven Dawn, whose taste I trust even more than my own. So on a rainy Saturday afternoon, I dragged Mr. Biceps to the movies.
Tim Allen (looking very biceps-laden himself, I must say) plays the egotistical Jason Nesmith, the aging former star of a Star Trek-like show called Galaxy Quest. Nesmith and his bickering colleagues Gwen DeMarco (a very blonde and very funny Sigourney Weaver), Alexander Dane (the always-brilliant Alan Rickman), Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub) and Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell) have been reduced to making appearances at Galaxy Quest conventions and cutting ribbons at electronics store openings.
Its at one of these conventions that Nesmith encounters what he thinks are four of his more socially impaired fans. But it seems that the fans are in fact aliens from the planet Thermia, who believe 1) that the episodes of the show are historical documents; 2) that Jason Nesmith really is his Galaxy Quest character Cmdr. Peter Quincy Taggart; and 3) that he and his crew are the only ones who can save their race from extinction.
Nesmith signs up for the job faster than I signed up for a Victorias Secret credit card at Christmas, and soon hes enlisted his crew to come along for what Nesmith tells Dane is the role of a lifetime. In one of the funniest ongoing bits, theyre joined by Guy Fleegman (Sam Rockwell), who has been capitalizing on his brief appearance in Episode 81. Unfortunately, acting like space heroes on TV has left them hilariously unprepared for actually facing the dangers of deep space dangers that include the evil Sarris (Robin Sachs).
As directed by Dean Parisot from an clever, literate script by David Howard and Robert Gordon, Galaxy Quest skewers every cliché of the science fiction genre and the mini-culture it creates: the cheesy dialogue, the obsessed fans, the perils of outer space as interpreted by screenwriters. Much humor is milked from the fact that Thermians have created the spaceship to be an exact replica of the one on the TV show, and in one of the films most hilarious sequences, Nesmith (Allen) and DeMarco (Weaver) dodge a gauntlet of big clangy things that smash together yet serve no apparent purpose. Whoever wrote this episode should die! screams DeMarco as they dodge the deadly pistons.
Galaxy Quest has a few gentle messages about friendship, courage and role-playing, but like any good spoof, the film doesnt hit you over the head with them. The excellent cast appears to be having a grand old time, and it rubs off on the audience. I cant imagine what convinced Allen, Weaver et. al. to do this movie, but Im glad they did. At the child-filled matinee I saw, the adults were the ones laughing the hardest: we remember (or some of us remember, anyway) the early episodes of Star Trek and the first Star Wars movie). What a delight.
Oh yes, I mentioned Starship Troopers. Darlings, all I can say is, this is the director that brought us Showgirls, and Im seriously concerned. The people with whom I saw this awful thing tried to convince me that Troopers is a satire on the violence- and war-obsessed American culture, and I love to satirize America as much as the next person, but this one is grisly, badly acted, and despite having had what was probably the GNP of a small nation spent on it, boring.
Its a sad day when the character I like the best (the tasty Patrick Muldoon from Will & Grace) is the one who gets his brains sucked out. Watching Starship Troopers, perhaps I empathized with him. When your lead actor has the expressiveness of a Ken doll and your lead actress is Denise Richards, well, need I say more? One has to depend on a sick mind and special effects to keep your audience from bolting. I, however, was stranded between Reno and Donner Pass, and I wasnt going anywhere.
So save the money youd spend on DVD rentals and spend it on popcorn at Galaxy Quest. You may not be as lucky as I was to have Mr. Biceps sitting next to you, but youll get lots of eye candy anyway, including Sigourney Weaver earning a most saucy burgundy Wonderbra its name. And to some of us gals with more space-efficient cleavage, that in itself is a reason for hope. I give Galaxy Quest a rousing Chanel Vamp-polished thumbs-up.