Galaxy Quest

December 10, 2004

Rated: PG Runtime: 104 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

If ever there was a movie that was perfect for a Christmas day release,this is it. Much like angel food cake, it is light, sweet, and fluffy -just the thing you need to take your mind off of the stress of the holidays.

Galaxy Quest can and will be many things to many people. On the one hand,it’s a fun, campy spoof of the sci-fi genre and its fandom with sfx thatare much better than I would have predicted. On the other, we get to seesome cynical, burned out people travel the roads of self-doubt and,ultimately, redemption.

The movie first sets its sights on the world of sci-fi conventions and thefans that they attract. If you’ve ever been to one of these conventions,you will have feelings of deja vu as you watch the movie. Here at theconvention, we find the cast of the long ago cancelled TV series “GalaxyQuest”. Leading them is Jason Nesmith (Allen) who played Commander PeterQuincy Taggart on the show.

The years haven’t been kind to Nesmith and his intrepid adventurers as theyhave found little work since their series so successfully stereotyped them. Except for Nesmith, they don’t care for the conventions. But with noother source of income, they jump at any chance to attend one.

Enter some aliens who monitored the TV broadcasts of their show and believethem to be historical documents detailing the real exploits of a bravecrew. The aliens enlist Nesmith & his crew to aid them in their strugglefor survival against a vile lizard-like general.

In the end, our intrepid heroes triumph over evil as well as lead usthrough a series of quite funny scenes. Along the way, they also find thatthe characters which had imprisoned their careers are a great source ofinspiration and courage.

Sure, there were lots of plot holes and point of complete illogic, but whocares? While the movie uses science fiction as a backdrop and a basis forhumor, the movie is not about science or fiction. It’s about the lives ofgood people. It’s about pretending and how, if we can successfully pretendto be courageous, there must actually be something of that courage in us.

Posted by Alex | Filed Under 3 Stars, Action, Alan Rickman, PG, SciFi, Sigourney Weaver, Theatrical, Tim Allen, Tony Shalhoub