Bad Movie Club: Space Mutiny

1988 science fiction movie

Bad Movie Rating: 2/5 (Josh: 3/5; Fred: 1.5/5; Johnny: 2/5; Kristen: 1/5; Libby: no rating)

Rating: 5/20

Plot: The evil Kalgan is trying to take over a spaceship for reasons that aren't really ever clear, and it's up to a burly hero and Santa Claus's daughter to save everybody.

This one's for John Phillip Law completists only. In a way, it's just not fair for a bad movie to have to follow up Neil Breen. Breen sets impossible standards, and no amount of John Phillip Law evil laughter is going to meet those standards. This movie borrows space battle scenes from Battlestar Gallactica, but most of the action takes place on the interior of the spaceship which sort of looks like an abandoned warehouse or something lots of metal stairs and places where it looks like wares could have been stored. It gives the characters plenty of room to dart around in Enforcers, these cute little scooters.

Seriously, what actor is going to see that on the set and not say, "That's what we're chasing each other around in? Screw it, I'm out of this movie." And check out the glare from those windows in the background. That doesn't seem right. Those Enforcer chase scenes are dull and endless, but not as dull and endless as the laser gun fighting scenes where nobody but hero Dave Ryder and love interest Lea (ahem) Jansen can hit anything. I am impressed with that body count though. Lots of nameless characters die in this movie, and it gets redundant. I mean, you're forced to watch nearly the same stunt--a guy being shot and tumbling forward from a platform--over and over again. There are also some space whores who show up and bring their own plasma globes because the only special effects these people could afford involved a trip to Spencer's Gifts. (That's not my joke, by the way. That's all Johnny.) By the way, here's one of the directors:

Yep, David Winters--A-Rab from West Side Story. The other director was Neal Sundstrom who went on to do loads of things you haven't heard of. An assistant director (because this movie needed lots of direction apparently) was Evan J. Klisser who also played a character named Mohawk who had a mohawk. Oh, and this apparently also happens somewhere in space:

I hope nothing I wrote up there is going to make you think you should run out and see this movie because you shouldn't. I mean, who wants to watch a science fiction movie with these people in it?

And there's that glare again. I'm starting to wonder if this movie was filmed in space at all.