Le Guerrier de l'espace : Aventures en zone interdite

I make a point to catch Spacehunter every time it airs (usually after 1 a.m.). It's classic cheese, and I submit there's a place in our moral-cinematic universe for such films.

What films? Oh, having Michael Ironside as the villain is a good clue. If I had to define them...films so goofy (yet riddled with neat ideas that only the low-budget creative intellect can conjure) that we harken back to adolescence and think how cool these films would have been/were when we saw them with our junior high pals.

Yes, this is MST3K material, but lovingly so, nostalgically so. An ugly duckling that never becomes a swan--never even really gives such a transformation a shot--but one we can groove on precisely because it's so dorky.

Sure it's just Mad Max meets Star Wars with a main character that is obviously trying to be Han Solo, but it's got some cool ideas mashed up in the familiar packaging. The effects are decent and the action moves along at a good clip even though you've probably seen most of this stuff before. Worth checking out anyway because it has an old school charm lacking in today's CGI fests.

Spacehunter is a film I saw as a child, which has remained at the back of my mind for years. Around the same time, I was watching things like Ghostbusters and Star Trek (The Wrath of Khan), and knew nothing about special effects, budgets or story lines. All I knew was that I liked these films. Having recently obtained a copy of Spacehunter, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it holds up, compared to other classics. Yes, a lot of it is hokey nonsense, but in a GOOD way.

Strauss makes a likable rogue, obviously straight from the Han Solo mold, and Molly Ringwald is her usual early eighties cutie. The special effects are fair for the time (though the title sequence leaves something to be desired), and the futuristic 'Mad Max' style vehicles could easily be from a more recent movie.

Michael Ironside is almost unrecogniseable underneath prosthetics, but offers a great performance, hampered only by his lack of mobility in costume. I was especially surprised to recognise Ernie Hudson as a supporting character, playing Strauss' ex-buddy.

In all, a great film with a few minor flaws. I'm amazed this got no further than it did at the time. One of the few post-Star Wars movies that deserves a sequel (which i'm tempted to have a bash at myself).

i'm a big fan of portions of this film - primarily the Peter Strauss/Molly Ringwald portions - despite their 21 year age difference - their incessant battling brought out the duo's chemistry just as if this were a romantic comedy - and Molly's valley-girl-in-space remains one of my favorite scifi characters ever.

with their charisma - and a talented supporting cast including Ernie Hudson, Andrea Marcovicci, and Michael Ironside - along with some imaginative set design - and great dialog for Molly - this is more than a gimmicky scifi yarn - too bad the rest of the movie isn't up to that standard.

This was made during the whole 3D craze of the early 80's. To me it is actually one of the better ones as well. Is it great, no, but it is fun and never boring (well to me anyway). Notice though that in these 3D movies they are either sequels (Jaws 3D, Amityville 3D) or they have the largest titles ever conceived? Why not just call this one "Spacehunter" why add the last part? There is another one called "MetalStorm: The destruction of Jared Syn" and one called "Treasure of the Four Crowns". The only one I can think of that didn't fall into either of these two categories is "Parasite". This one focuses on this guy who has to track down these women who have landed on this planet full of a lot of weird stuff. They get captured by this sadistic weird looking machine guy. During his hunt for the women he runs into this gal who helps him a bit and they run into all these strange creatures and other rival hunters. This movie was rather entertaining and rather stood on its own. It was good without the 3D to me and is interesting to check out.