Prime Time: Spaceballs (1987)

There was some recent news that put Spaceballs at the forefront of my mind. First of all, we're apparently getting a sequel. Second, Mel Brooks just turned 99 a few days ago. Both of these things reminded me that it had been too long since I last watched Spaceballs, despite owning it on both disc and digital form for some time.

Everyone should know about this by now. It's spoofing a very famous sci-fi franchise (hence the sequel, now there are so many other moments to mine comedy from). Bill Pullman is the reluctant hero, Lone Starr, travelling through space with his furry companion, Barf (John Candy). With a large debt hanging over their heads, the two end up incentivised to rescue Princess Vespa (Dapne Zuniga) and her metallic handmaid, Dot Matrix (voiced by Joan Rivers). That leads to them all trying to stay one step ahead from the powerful and dangerous Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis).

Directed by Brooks, who also co-wrote the thing with Thomas Meehan and Ronny Graham (the latter giving himself one of the best scenes in which he plays a minister), Spaceballs benefits from a great cast that includes those already mentioned, including Brooks himself in a couple of different roles, and Dick Van Patten, George Wyner (superb as Colonel Sandurz), Michael Winslow aka the human sound machine. There's also room for very brief turns from Stephen Tobolowsky, John Hurt, Rhonda Shear, Rick Ducommun, an unrecognisable Dom DeLuise as Pizza The Hutt, and a few other familiar names.

I still have a soft spot for Spaceballs, mainly thanks to Pullman and co. in the lead roles, but most people would admit that it's far from top-tier comedy from Brooks. It's time, however, to be a bit more honest about how far it is from his best work. Spaceballs isn't that good. The jokes are more miss than hit, although they work on an eye-rolling "dad joke" level, the thin plot feels exactly like what it is (an excuse for the gags), and some of the makeup and effects are absolutely awful. This is the start of Brooks spoofing something because it is popular, as opposed to the masterpieces he crafted when spoofing movies that he appeared to have genuine affection for.

There are good moments here and there (anything with Rick Moranis is usually good enough to make viewers smile, and the gags that reference Alien and Planet Of The Apes are nicely constructed), and I defy anyone to tell me that they wouldn't enjoy spending some time in the company of 1980s Pullman, Candy, Zuniga, and Rivers. It's just a shame that nobody seemed interested in making this the best that it could be. It's sporadically amusing, but it mainly feels lazy, and if I want to watch something lazy that will also make me laugh then I'll just spend time looking at my middle-aged spread in a mirror.

I'm not going to rate it like I hate it though, because I don't. That soft spot doesn't simply disappear because a rewatch has reminded me of so many negatives. It's sustained by small pleasures as simple as Candy wagging his tail in excitement or a literal display of radar being jammed.

6/10

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Dogs (1976).

The puns can begin straight away with this one. A complete dog of a movie. We're gonna need a bigger bone. Things get a bit . . . . . . ruff.

I’ll try to control myself now, I apologise but this is the kind of movie that leaves you to make up your own fun while the plot plays out predictably and with a serious lack of any excitement.

It’s all about a sudden spate of attacks by dogs, hence the title. Something (could it be whatever’s being done in that damn lab?) has turned them into vicious killers. Even the ones that look like cuddly Labradors being prodded into action by some offscreen dog wrangler. It’s up to David McCallum to provide the star power and possible solution, George Wyner is the other big brain who believes him when nobody else does and Linda Gray . . . . . . . . . . takes off her glasses and puts them on again in some kind of strange, and strangely alluring, seductive tic.

Dogs is just one of those movies, so prevalent in the 70s, about animals that turn into killers but it could have been a very good one. Instead, it wastes it’s premise by failing to cover up the budgetary shortcomings, throwing in one too many scenes clearly meant to instil terror that clearly instil mild amusement instead and not throwing in lots and lots of gore to compensate for whatever else it’s missing.

McCallum is okay in the lead role but he’s stuck playing the kind of clichéd, dull hero that we’ve seen far too many times in the genre. A maverick, a guy who can stumble onto something major but not get the back-up to find a solution in time to save the lives of the locals around him, he may as well have “rugged, moody, intelligent hero” tattooed on his forehead.

As for the dogs themselves, they don’t really get a chance to shine despite having the title of the movie. There are occasional moments of tension and violence but our canine killers spend most of the time looking like they’d much rather be fetching sticks or chasing rubber balls. Many of the dogs look the part, and are much scarier than (for example) the large rabbits in Night Of The Lepus, but just as many look like they couldn’t bite their way out of Paris Hilton’s handbag.

I actually enjoyed this more than The Breed, a killer dog movie released 30 years after this one, but that’s because there was more that was obviously laughable and it didn’t have Michelle Rodriguez in it. Other viewers may be more discerning and decide to avoid the film completely but fans of the genre, and all it can offer, can at least mine SOME entertainment value from this film. But there are many preferable options.

4/10.

http://www.amazon.com/Dogs-1976-Remastered-Widescreen-Blu-ray/dp/B00HVFA34A/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1394495188&sr=1-2&keywords=dogs