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Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone

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Media:	VHS Tape
Directed by:	Lamont Johnson
Starring:
Release date:	30 January, 1996

Average user rating: Average user rating: 3.5

Great fun B-movie

Somehow, this is much more entertaining than it should be. It's one of those films that's dumb but totally watchable. One thing that none of the other reviews has mentioned is the decent score by Elmer Bernstein which adds a lot to the film. The main theme is suitably rousing, a la The Magnificent Seven, but he also has some whistful pipe/flute cues that complement the thematic elements of being on a strange outlying world where civilization has broken down, adding a tinge of sadness to the proceedings. As McNab, Ironside is great as always, and there's just enough invention to offset the obvious genre influences, which, as other people have noted, are actually more on the Mad Max than the Star Wars side of things.

Adventures in the Moronic Zone...

Way back in the early 80's we were still suffering from a glut of cruddy science fiction films trying to either emulate or capitalize of the successes of George Lucas' Star Wars films. Around that same time, a handful of films were released in 3D like Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D (1983), Jaws 3-D (1983), and this film, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983). Now, 3D technology, if done well, and properly shown, looks great (sometimes the process involved two, separate projectors to show two negatives at once, as long as the projectors were in sync, but that wasn't always the case), but it's more or less just a crummy gimmick to push a rotten film. The last time I saw a really good film in 3D was The House of Wax (1953), starring Vincent Price, at Chicago's Music Box Theater during a midnight showing on Halloween, involving a highly specialized projector, but I digress...

Spacehunter (the Columbia/Tristar DVD release seems to have dropped the `Adventures into the Forbidden Zone' part as it was silly to begin with, but Amazon seems to have kept it in their listing of the title on their site...hee hee), directed by Lamont Johnson, whose career mostly consists of made for TV movies and episodes of various television programs (as I've said before, stick with what you know), lists six writers...that's right, I said six writers...with the main two being Len Blum and Daniel Goldberg, both of whom share writing credits for Meatballs (1979) and Stripes (1981), two really funny films, both produced by Ivan Reitman, who also produced Spacehunter. So let's sum up...Blum + Goldberg + Reitman + comedy = Good...Blum + Goldberg + Reitman + science fiction = Bad...very bad...and things only get worse from here...cast (or horribly miscast, in my opinion) in the film are serious actor Peter `Rich Man, Poor Man' Strauss (funny, I don't recall any other sci-fi films to his credit after this one), and the ever annoying Molly Ringworm...er, I mean Ringwald, prior to her successes in a handful of John Hughes films, but currently resides in Hollywood's extensive `where are they now?' file. Also appearing are Ernie Hudson (Ghost Busters, The Crow), and Michael Ironside (Highlander II: The Quickening, Total Recall) as the main bad guy (oooh, that's a bit of inspired casting, since nearly every film I've ever seen him in he's played the bad guy).

The film's plot, such as it is, involves a sort of bounty hunter named Wolff (the second F is some lame attempt at coolness, I suppose) played by Strauss, who learns of a reward for the recovery of three comely space maidens (bimbos), stranded on a distant planet when the space transport ship they were traveling on was completely destroyed due to some kind of snafu or other, and they were forced to flee in an escape craft. The planet they landed on, colonized many years ago, is infested with mutants and such as a plague has since transformed many of the original colonists, and now they are governed by a huge, cybernetic dictator named Overdog (Ironside), who has since captured the three women. As Wolff arrives on the planet, he meets Nikki the Twister (Ringwald), a human enough resident who claims she can help Wolff track the missing women in exchange for food. Wolff, Overdog, Nikki the Twister? Man, this film's got some dumb character names...along the way, the run into various characters, monsters, and various groups of mutants, all leading up to a final confrontation with Overdog and his lackeys. That's about it...

First of all, I will say the studio that produced this film sure sunk a lot of money into the sets, location shots, and props. That's about as much credit I can give to the movie. The directing isn't bad, and neither is the acting, as the main problems the film has is within the casting, script, and plot. Strauss seems to be trying, but he never quite fits into place as the loner space jockey type. Ringwald is the worst, in my opinion, but then I've never really cared for her all that much anyway. She's woefully miscast here, trying to be a spunky, smart alecky, street-wise waif that's supposed to put us off at first, but then is supposed to grow on us as the film proceeds. That never happens, as she's just completely annoying throughout, especially with her incredibly stupid moron-speak similar to that used by the lost children in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985). It was kinda cute in that film, but not so here. Ringwald is at her best when playing what she knows, the whiny, self-important, snobby, bratty, stuck up suburban high school princess, as was the case in many of her John Hughes films, but here she's completely out of her element, as the limits of her range as an actress do not extend very far. Ironside is wasted here, as he is buried under so much prosthetics. Some actors can make it work, like Karloff as Frankenstein's monster, but then Ironside is no Karloff. The plot drifts aimlessly from one stupid encounter to another, with scenes meant to display a budding relationship between Wolff and Nikki, but it was hard to maintain interest regardless of what was happening. Not only that, but there's a creepy, underlying sexual vibe throughout the film, between Wolff and Nikki, Nikki and Overdog, and Overdog and the bimbos, one that didn't help me any getting through the film.

The picture on this DVD is wide screen of sorts, and looks kind of shabby, as evidence of age has begun to affect the negative. Also, the tones are drab, making the film look pretty dull and lifeless. There is also a full frame version available here, on the flipside of the DVD. As far as special features go, there are three trailers for other films, Krull, Men in Black, and Starship Troopers and that's it...

Cookieman108

Classic top-notch 80s B-movie

I love this movie. Yes it is definitely a B-movie, but as a B-movie I think it's one of the great ones.

It comes from the era when Mad Max and the Road Warrior were all the rage and so has the same "lost in a decaying forbidden zone" kind of feel.

After trying to be a serious actor and starring in things like the TV mini-series "Rich Man, Poor Man", Peter Strauss' career obviously stalled, as by 1983 he was reduced to starring in B-grade fare like this. And Molly Ringwald, fresh from "The Facts of Life" and prior to her becoming the 80s teen movie queen, has never been more annoying -- which is just what the script called for her to be: an annoying, whiney early teen. And "Ghostbusters'" Ernie Hudson also shows up to round out our cast of heroes.

This movie has everything -- from androids to sea monsters and mad scientists to amazons.

The costuming and set design are also well done and imaginative, especially the ultra-cool villain Overdog (played to perfection by Michael Ironside) and his nightmarish death maze.

If you're looking for meaningful or "serious" sci-fi you should probably look elsewhere. But if you're looking for some purely mindless entertainment which doesn't take itself too seriously and lets you just turn off your brain, chill out and be transported to another universe, this movie is perfect.

A classic slice of 80s space-flavoured cheese!