Space Mutiny is nothing more than a poor excuse to show a bunch of skinny women in skin-tight leotards. It's so awful that one does not need to begin with how bad it really is. There's sunlight shining through the windows when the film is supposed to be in space, most of the scenes look like they were filmed in a storage warehouse, the special effects are about as mind-blowing as the graphics for an Atari game, half of the scenes are just a bunch of needless explosions, and the plot is ridiculous. I'm sure the writers for MST3K only needed to rewind this a couple of times to think of some good jokes, for it's so easy to make fun of. Why, I bet they had a field day. That is, for making the riffs at least.
Believe it or not, I thought that there was a chance that this movie wouldn't be as awful as it really is. From what I had read it seemed to have a chance of only being just bad. Instead it turned out to be twice as worse than I had expected. I got that feeling when the beginning credits started, and we get a painful reminder that this was made in the 80's with the "zoom" effect, in which the credits appear as blurs and shoot towards the screen. After the credits, we get our first look at the Southern Star while a narrator (who sounds like a voiceover for a corporation training video) talks about the ship and the gracious shelter it provides for its occupants. The Southern Sun is basically a starship carrying thousands of people to another planet, all of which are led by a guy named Alex Jansen, who looks a lot like Santa Claus. All seems well aboard the Southern Sun as work out instructors walk around in small bodysuits and guys stride with awful hairdos. However, the security crew (otherwise known as the "Enforcers") within the ship has plans to bring it to the pirate-infested Corona Borealis system, so they form a rebellion and try to take over the ship. Their leader is Elijah Kalgan, who in terms of looks seems like he's trying desperately to be Antonio Banderas and instead spends 98 percent of the time looking like he's forcing his skull out of his head.
Anyways, the "Enforcers" make their first move when they blow up several engines and boilers with just one small bomb, causing the Southern Sun docking bay to become disabled. Apparently these guys don't want to go to the new planet, so they also take their frustration out on the other occupants by encasing them in shrink wrap and hanging them like slabs of meat in a butcher shop. But the Enforcers' plans are endangered by David Hasselhoff wannabe Dave Ryder and his girlfriend Lea Jansen, who spend scene after scene wandering around the ship and killing guards with only a couple of weak punches. At first Lea blames Ryder for the death of her friend Professor Spooner, but as they discover more about Kalgan's plans they become closer to each other. Even though Lea looks a little old and Dave is totally stupid, they somehow make it together. And they form a couple so bad that the clichés in the romance plot prove to be even bigger than the numerous explosions. But of all of the ridiculous plotlines, the worst has to be the one of the Bellerian women, who spend the entire movie in some cell doing slow versions of the Macarena in hole-filled leotards while worshiping orb balls that look like something I could buy at Spencer's Gifts. But somehow they manage to help Dave defeat Kalgan in an anti-climatic floor polisher chase that is compared to the chariot races in Ben-Hur by Mike and the Bots (Mike: `They'll say, 'You know, Ben-Hur was a really good movie. This movie totally sucked.').
Put shortly, this is one of the worst movies that I have ever seen. I must admit that for a film featured on MST3K, the plot actually has some layers. But despite some complexity (which only came because of the distracting riffs, but there's nothing wrong with that), this film is absolutely meaningless. For one, it seems the director focused on the leotard-wearing trend more than just about anything else, except for the explosions. The biggest display of this comes during the god-awful 80's disco scene, where Lea constantly displays her toosh. Argh!!! But surprisingly, that wasn't the biggest flaw. To decide that would be hard, but the winner could be how Lt. Lemont was killed off in one scene only to show up at her post 5 minutes later. You've also got to give credit to the floor polishers-disguised-as-hovercrafts gig, which will leave you in stitches even if you're somehow viewing this without MST3K. One of the things that I loved the most was the fact that it was clearly shot in a warehouse. All they needed to do was set off some mines and throw a bunch of dummies over the railing and they would have almost the entire film done. Hm, all of a sudden, Eegah looks like it's on par with Apocalypse Now.
As for the rating of the episode that this was featured in, I give it 4/5 stars. The riffing, although slow and even absent at times, was great and the host segments were good enough, except for the excellent escape pod sequence. This was definitely the kind of cheese that MST3K was made for, and it was excellently devoured. I especially love the jokes geared towards Dave Ryder (Crud BoneMeal, Big McLargeHuge, Blast ThickNeck, Buck PlankChest, and so on).
If what I have just said is not enough to convince you that this movie is horrible, then let me just say that if you took a camera to a warehouse and filmed people running on the walkways for an hour, you would have half of the scenes of Space Mutiny.
Movie rating: 0 out of ***** Episode rating: **** out of *****
Believe it or not, I thought that there was a chance that this movie wouldn't be as awful as it really is. From what I had read it seemed to have a chance of only being just bad. Instead it turned out to be twice as worse than I had expected. I got that feeling when the beginning credits started, and we get a painful reminder that this was made in the 80's with the "zoom" effect, in which the credits appear as blurs and shoot towards the screen. After the credits, we get our first look at the Southern Star while a narrator (who sounds like a voiceover for a corporation training video) talks about the ship and the gracious shelter it provides for its occupants. The Southern Sun is basically a starship carrying thousands of people to another planet, all of which are led by a guy named Alex Jansen, who looks a lot like Santa Claus. All seems well aboard the Southern Sun as work out instructors walk around in small bodysuits and guys stride with awful hairdos. However, the security crew (otherwise known as the "Enforcers") within the ship has plans to bring it to the pirate-infested Corona Borealis system, so they form a rebellion and try to take over the ship. Their leader is Elijah Kalgan, who in terms of looks seems like he's trying desperately to be Antonio Banderas and instead spends 98 percent of the time looking like he's forcing his skull out of his head.
Anyways, the "Enforcers" make their first move when they blow up several engines and boilers with just one small bomb, causing the Southern Sun docking bay to become disabled. Apparently these guys don't want to go to the new planet, so they also take their frustration out on the other occupants by encasing them in shrink wrap and hanging them like slabs of meat in a butcher shop. But the Enforcers' plans are endangered by David Hasselhoff wannabe Dave Ryder and his girlfriend Lea Jansen, who spend scene after scene wandering around the ship and killing guards with only a couple of weak punches. At first Lea blames Ryder for the death of her friend Professor Spooner, but as they discover more about Kalgan's plans they become closer to each other. Even though Lea looks a little old and Dave is totally stupid, they somehow make it together. And they form a couple so bad that the clichés in the romance plot prove to be even bigger than the numerous explosions. But of all of the ridiculous plotlines, the worst has to be the one of the Bellerian women, who spend the entire movie in some cell doing slow versions of the Macarena in hole-filled leotards while worshiping orb balls that look like something I could buy at Spencer's Gifts. But somehow they manage to help Dave defeat Kalgan in an anti-climatic floor polisher chase that is compared to the chariot races in Ben-Hur by Mike and the Bots (Mike: `They'll say, 'You know, Ben-Hur was a really good movie. This movie totally sucked.').
Put shortly, this is one of the worst movies that I have ever seen. I must admit that for a film featured on MST3K, the plot actually has some layers. But despite some complexity (which only came because of the distracting riffs, but there's nothing wrong with that), this film is absolutely meaningless. For one, it seems the director focused on the leotard-wearing trend more than just about anything else, except for the explosions. The biggest display of this comes during the god-awful 80's disco scene, where Lea constantly displays her toosh. Argh!!! But surprisingly, that wasn't the biggest flaw. To decide that would be hard, but the winner could be how Lt. Lemont was killed off in one scene only to show up at her post 5 minutes later. You've also got to give credit to the floor polishers-disguised-as-hovercrafts gig, which will leave you in stitches even if you're somehow viewing this without MST3K. One of the things that I loved the most was the fact that it was clearly shot in a warehouse. All they needed to do was set off some mines and throw a bunch of dummies over the railing and they would have almost the entire film done. Hm, all of a sudden, Eegah looks like it's on par with Apocalypse Now.
As for the rating of the episode that this was featured in, I give it 4/5 stars. The riffing, although slow and even absent at times, was great and the host segments were good enough, except for the excellent escape pod sequence. This was definitely the kind of cheese that MST3K was made for, and it was excellently devoured. I especially love the jokes geared towards Dave Ryder (Crud BoneMeal, Big McLargeHuge, Blast ThickNeck, Buck PlankChest, and so on).
If what I have just said is not enough to convince you that this movie is horrible, then let me just say that if you took a camera to a warehouse and filmed people running on the walkways for an hour, you would have half of the scenes of Space Mutiny.
Movie rating: 0 out of ***** Episode rating: **** out of *****