The Black Hole

1979 sci-fi movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A crew stumbles upon a giant ship perched next to a black hole, and when they explore the ship, they find a crazy bearded guy and a bunch of robots.

"It's about time people learned about their failures and my successes."

There's a moment when Maximilian Schell, who very well might be giving it his all as the crazed scientist and space explorer, points at the titular black hole, looks in that directions, appears to notice that he's not pointing in the right spot, and moves his arm in order to point in the right spot.

This is Disney's first PG movie, and that's probably because of a pair of "damns" that Ernest Borgnine spits out. Borgnine sure was in some dopey movies at this stage of his career, wasn't he? This was my second Robert Forster movie of the week, and Anthony Perkins is also in this thing along with the voices of Roddy McDowell and Slim Pickens. I guess Slim Pickens voicing a robot is the least of this movie's concerns.

The effects are charmingly dated, but it's really hard to believe this movie with its Disney budget came after A New Hope. I like the way that black hole looks, and I like this nightmarish hellscape that is produced at the end. Along with a bunch of robot deaths, a really dark explanation for why those robots even exist, and that sci-fi vision of hell, it's easy to understand why this earned that PG rating. I did enjoy how the black hole itself looked, a gorgeous swirling bit of cartoon psychedelia always lurking outside the ship's windows.

John Barry scored this thing, and although some of the music is really good, it's way too much at times, especially during the action scenes. I think he was trying to out-Williams John Williams.