1999 / 102 Minutes / PG
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

Galaxy Quest has a lot of moments that are immensely fun, but it also has a lot of moments that aren’t.

It starts out wittily enough with a group of has-been actors of an old sci-fi show getting together for a convention. Here, it has a lot of fun with all things “Star Trek” and there is plenty here to have fun with. The whole idea of people being so obsessed with “Star Trek” is pretty pathetic, but also sort of endearing. You have to admit that it is neat that a show created so many years ago has given so many people so much joy…even if they are geeks. It has a ball with this whole idea, and it shows.

And then… well, everything starts to go awry. The aliens in this movie are fairly lame. They have these bad accents (although they are better than most of the accents in “Episode One”) and there is very little payoff to these scenes.

Then the entire cast of “Galaxy Quest” gets taken into Outer Space to fight an evil creature who looks like a sadistic vegetable. The premise of the film is pretty clever: aliens think that the cast of the old show are real space heroes and enlist their aid to fight a war. And several of the scenes are pretty funny and others are quite poignant.

Yet the film’s main problem is that there aren’t enough jokes. Now, check me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the point of a comedy? To make you laugh? I found myself smiling at much of the film, but I wasn’t having as much fun as I should have. I just found the whole thing to be a rather generic exercise. All the actors are well cast. Tim Allen is perfect as a egomaniacal drunk. Alan Rickman seems to be having great fun with his role as a serious actor pigeonholed by his most famous role. And Sigourney Weaver is very effective (not to mention FOXY, YOW!!!!!!!!!!!) in her role as a woman resigned to playing the bimbo who has grown tired of it and is desperate to show her stuff.

But the best member of the ensemble is Tony Shaloub as the supporting actor. At once you realize how funny this guy is. When the rest of the “cast” are reacting to their new situation with wide-eyed amazement, he simply takes a look around, nods and gets down to business. Every one of his scenes is hilarious. Pity there aren’t more of them.

Another great thing are the people playing the fanatical fans. They bring great life to their roles and have a lot of very funny payoffs.

The film is very funny, when it chooses to be, but it just should have been a lot more so. In between these moments of great humor are moments that are, frankly, pretty boring and a few that are just plain lame. A near miss, but a miss nonetheless.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 25th, 1999 at 7:56 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.