Proxima Centauri 3 - Revolte im All

I watched the movie while recovering from major surgery. While I knew it was only a "B" film, a space western, I loved it. It may have lacked the flash of high dollar productions it non-the-less held my imagination and provided great escapism. Sadly our society has so much available, discounting small attempts is too easy. In the same way that I can enjoy a even a grade school performance of Shakespeare, I can appreciate many levels of achievement for the art sake. I am a cop and found affinity with the retired LAPD. Dreams like his haunt me that I will be unable in the moment of crisis be able to respond to save another's life (or my own). while it was a romantic ending where Farnsworth did take out the bad guy (predictable) I needed a little happy romance where good can triumph. My world is really too cynical.

Richard Farnsworth( recently nominated for an oscar for THE STRAIGHT STORY)plays a retired space ranger. An escaped prisoner(Michael Pare) goes on a rampage, and it's up to already-crotchety Farnsworth to stop him.

Yawn. This is some of the most dull filmmaking that is possible. The sets a cheap and resemble cardboard. The story is recycled from countless westerns. And, although the actors here have been good in other films, the acting is sub-par. If only someone could have figured a way out of making this 80 minutes so unbearably boring. There is hardly any action untli the end, and when it finally comes, you'll be sleeping.

SPACE RAGE is pretty poor. I see where everyone has cast very low votes. It makes me wonder how long it will take for this flick to reach the bottom 200.

Still, this is better than watching PIPPI LONGSTOCKING again. Now, there's a real painful experience!

Butt Money. Throughout this movie, you will hear this song. It's supposed to be called 'Blood Money,' but it sounds so much like Butt Money (was the singer holding his tongue?) that it's best if you refer to it as that. Butt Money...YEAAAAHHH!!

Cheaply produced music aside, the movie also suffers from not knowing what it is. It takes place on New Botany Bay, a planet of deserts (?) with a very familiar Southern California like landscape where prisoners are held and supposedly mine materials as part of their punishment. Also sentenced here is Richard Farnsworth, walking his way to a paycheck as some LAPD officer whose own stupidity lead to him being hit by a knife in some weird dream sequence. Called into action by...um...somebody, he dresses up in his old duds to dish out old fashioned justice. In a planet wide prison inexplicably called New Botany Bay that has only five guards and a couple of dune buggys.

Special notice to all the bad special effects, which include:

--prisoners obviously pretending to fire guns which are just toys with no muzzle flare or smoke,

--stunt doubles that, when hit by Farnsworth, do a flip in the air before turning into dummies who hit the ground and freeze all motion on the film,

--General confusion when they hit the 'industrial' area of this prison planet and the conveniently located roadside diner (?!) on this prison planet.

Bottom line: a very obvious attempt at something that went wrong. This is a prime example of something going very very wrong. This is the product of people with no talent, I'm sorry to say.

The question is, can a movie this entertaining really be considered a "bad" movie? My husband and I picked this up at a used video store for 99 cents simply because of the title and the fact that the box had the words "Vestron Pictures" on it (Vestron has been highly regarded as a mark of quality ever since I first acquired the legendary films "Suburbia" and "Class of 1984"). We were not expecting a movie as full of win as this one was. Your basic plot as is follows: Grange, this goombaesque thug from planet Earth, robs "the bank of the Moon" and is sentenced to a penal colony on a remote planet (I don't even remember the planet's name) to mine for bauxite and other minerals. The "governor" of said colony and the owner of the mine are exploiting the prisoners for labor. Walker, a bounty hunter (apparently one of only three on the whole planet) reminds the prisoners that there is no escape, because there's only one shuttle out of the whole planet and they'd have him to deal with. Then there's the nameless "Colonel", a retired bounty hunter who suffers from a haunting reoccurring nightmare. Much of the movie centers around "futuristic" car chases (dunebuggies with plywood slapped to the sides) with explosions galore. The planet itself looks suspiciously like Hemet, CA or one of those other dusty Inland Empire outposts. But what makes the movie truly shine is a surprisingly awesome soundtrack featuring several LA punk bands of the mid-80s. I seriously doubt that this soundtrack was ever pressed to vinyl, but it's definitely worth buying the movie just for the soundtrack. I can't even remember the names of the bands (they're listed in the credits) other than Exploding White Mice, because that was the only one I'd heard of before I saw this movie, but I'm definitely looking into them.

Basically, the movie is definitely not a waste of your time and would be best enjoyed with a 12 pack of beer and a few of your closest friends.

Richard Farnsworth is one of my favorite actors. He usually gives solid performances, such as in The Straight Story, and The Grey Fox. He also does fairly well here, but the rest of the film suffers from a low budget, poor writing, and so-so photography. The Miller-Movie formula gives it a 4. Richard gets a 5.