Space Mutiny: La Guerre du futur

Watching "Space Mutiny" is the metaphorical equivalent of drinking cat urine...there's no way it can be any good for you, so why even try?

The special effects in this film are, I'm not kidding now, stock footage from Battlestar Galactica (played backwards, in some cases), or shot on what appears to be low-resolution video using models probably built from discarded "He-Man" toys. Unfortunately, that's about the best thing in the movie.

The acting...my God, the acting...I have NO idea who came up with this dialogue. Reb Brown is ridiculous, John Philip Law is absolutely NOT to be believed, and the rest of the cast, as well as the costumes, look like outtakes from an episode of Buck Rogers! (The second season...the really STINKY one!) The whole damned thing looks vaguely like a fever dream I had as a child after drinking sixteen cans of "Jolt"...and it's equally incomprehensible. My God, they actually announce the arrival of a pirate fleet by having some dope on a microphone say, "This is the pirate fleet...surrender or be turned into astro-dust." I think they shot the whole thing in a brewery with Go-Karts and used the same shot of a hops bin blowing up no less than four times. This movie has to be seen to be believed. I actually bought a copy for three dollars, just so I could show my friends that I was NOT making it up. Run, don't walk, away from this film.

0.0 stars out of a possible five.

Run, don't walk! Use those pneumatic catapults that launch jumpsuited terrorists through the air to escape this drivel. This movie shows just how limiting a small budget and a lack of imagination is. Footage lifted from Battlestar Galactica is edited into something that resembles a story. Can't really tell. There's a large slab of beef walking around that's supposed to be our hero. Santa Claus commands this barge with the help from Sting. His daughter looks like Sheri Lewis gone bad and they fight the evil Calgon! Watch this one on MST and watch for the dead girl who comes back to life and resumes her post on the bridge.

I actually quite enjoyed this film. Well, I enjoyed laughing at Mike and the Robots comments on it anyhow. The film itself is just the worst kind of awful you can imagine.

For a start, the budget for any real effects was obviously non-existent, so they stole LOTS of shots from Battlestar Galactica. These scenes occur early on in the movie mostly, and lead you to think that (apart from the plagiarism)it might not be too terrible. Wrong! After the initial ten minutes the Galactica stock-footage is rarely seen again, but the inside of various industrial buildings is seen almost constantly. I was thinking "Ah, a late 70's, early 80's era film" where any old chemical or power plant interior would do as "futuristic" sets. Wrong again! This "movie" was made in 1988, not even twenty years ago! It's like the makers went through a time warp to the late 70's, made the film, then brought it back for our delight.

But the plagiarism, in another form, continues right through the movie. The sound effects of the lasers are ripped straight from Battlestar Galactica again, and also, later on, the sound of the lasers from Battle Beyond the Stars makes an appearance.

Then there is the acting. Or rather, the awful lack of it. Particularly bad is Chunk Benchpress (aka Reb Brown) who lumbers around the sets trying to look dashing and heroic, then spoils the image by screaming like his 'nads have been caught in a food processor. The love interest for Chunk is old enough to be his mother (or maybe even grandmother!) and bares altogether too much flesh for someone of her advancing years and plastic surgery.

The commander of the ship on which the mutiny takes place is Cameron Mitchell, an actor of some note. What the Hell he was thinking in being in this is anybody's guess. But, bad though his choice of movie is, it's nothing compared to the ridiculous Father Christmas beard he's made to wear. It looks sooooo real nobody will be able to tell its a fake. Not!

And finally, the main cast is rounded off by John Phillip Law, another actor who has some credit to his name (At least prior to this turkey). Obviously he yearned for his wacky Barbarella days again and signed up for this abomination. I could never decide here whether he was actually trying to act or just hamming everything up. Suffice to say his maniacal cackling at even the slightest provocation ceases to be funny after the tenth or twentieth time.

Other things to watch out for are the stupid golf carts done up to look like futuristic transportation. The cheap body shells wobble like they're only held on with tape and the "chase" scenes are just hysterical. It's like you've tuned into a re-run of The Banana Splits Show. Try humming "Tra-la-lah, La-la-la-lah!" as you watch and its even funnier.

I won't mention the plot, because there really isn't one to speak of. Just a flimsy premise that people who were actually born in space are more likely to yearn for a real planet to live on than those who came from a planet, which sounds counter-intuitive to me. Or in other words, just plain dumb.

Watch it as an MST3K episode and this one is great. Without their comments it might be rather too much to handle for any normal person. It thoroughly deserves its place in the bottom 100 of the IMDb. You have been warned!

This is a film that was riffed on by Mystery Science Theater 3000. There may be debate on whether a film deserves the riffing, but this one most certainly deserves all the ridicule one can muster. A film that takes place on a spaceship, but the only reason you would even know this are the occasional outside shots showing the ship flying or the dogfights; however, those outside shots are not even from this film, but rather old clips from the television series Battlestar Galactica. The rest of the film looks like they shot in a high school for the bridge scenes, the futuristic bar scene and the Ballerines' room and all the fight scenes take place in a factory. In some of the scenes you can clearly see the sunshine coming through the windows. Do not get me wrong, there were a lot of bad science fiction films made during this time, but this film makes Roger Corman's stuff look amazing! It was certainly done on the cheap side of things, but I guess the hope is that you make it as incredibly cheap as possible and hopefully you can trick people into coming into the theater to see it with an awesome poster. Which could be done back in the day as there was no internet and suffice to say that trick did work on my parents a couple of times. Thankfully, they did not have to sit through this horrible train wreck and neither did I, that is until the gang from the Satellite of Love took no prisoners!

The story is a mess. You start out getting a voice over explaining that what is left of the people of Earth live on this large spaceship and that they are content to live there; however, there is a faction that wishes to leave said ship. Granted, I cannot say I blame them for wanting to leave if that futuristic bar is an example of the entertainment! Well there is a space battle that is completely random and is just a clip from Battlestar Galactica and then we meet Ryder who is beefy and the only one who can take out Kalgon and his evil army! Ryder falls in love with the commander of the ship's daughter. The daughter looks about the same age as her father as we get a woman trying to play the role of someone younger. Not going to say she looks bad, but she does look too old to be playing the love interest. There are kidnappings, betrayal and strange women who are called Ballerines that really serve no purpose...

This film was rightfully riffed by MST3K as it is kind of a mess. They riff the fact there are a lot of people flung over railings and rightfully so as there are a lot of people who get killed and then get flung over a railing! The woman's age is also a running joke as is the beefy hero. The most ridiculous thing that occurs in this film is when they start chasing each other in little carts that go at an extremely slow speed making one wonder why they do not just run or something?

So, this is a bad film as the best parts are the clips from an old television show. Too much going on that makes no sense as you have random space pirate attacks that really go nowhere and people wrapped in plastic. Kalgon seems to be nothing but a mere human, yet they act like he is a super powered foe and how exactly did he gain so much power? One also has to wonder why they cannot just leave the ship as Ryder the hero came on board and came from somewhere else. Just a mess, as this one has virtually no redeeming qualities. Makes another Reb Brown film, Yor, the Hunter from the Future look great by comparison.

OK, folks! Don't worry, I won't be giving away anything important, although I don't think I could spoil this movie if I tried. So off we go...

As what sounds like Kintaro's arrangement of 'O Fortuna' wafts our way, we are subjected to the film's opening credits. They look like they were produced by a Commodore 64 and they freeze up more than once because there are too darned many moving objects on the screen.

Welcome to Battlestar Galactica-- I mean, the Southern Sun! This ship is home to an entire civilization, despite the fact that 90% of it appears to be a brewery. In charge of this magnificent flying basement is Captain Santa Claus, assisted by his Billy-Idol-wannabe sidekick. I've seen this movie at least a dozen times and still am not really sure what the plot is, but it has something to do with a greasy-haired guy named Kalgan trying to disrupt the transportation of a bunch of magical -- and (of course) extremely horny -- women. Santa puts our seemingly brain-damaged hero Ryder in charge of defeating Kalgan. Meanwhile Captain Santa's daughter Leah, who somehow doesn't seem much younger than the Captain himself, gets pretty chummy with Ryder. In the words of Crow T. Robot: "If you pretend you know what's going on, it's actually kind of exciting."

Watch and enjoy the following: Vacu-formed unitards, ridiculously small weapons, Santa's incredibly fake beard, tinfoil muu-muus, Kalgan's giggling fits, Ryder's bizarre reaction shots, a woman who punches in at work despite the fact that she was just murdered, Leah's sensual Dance of the Hoola Hoop, the most '80s bar scene EVER, women who reeeeeally like Van DeGraf Generators, countless shots of computer screens (graphics by Kenner), Ryder's attempt to say 'auxiliary', and numerous molasses-fast chase scenes involving golf carts... or floor waxers or something.

This movie is not campy; it's just that everything is wrong in all the right ways. Acting, sets, lighting, costumes, dialogue... they're all just plain goofy. These folks tried to make an exciting space-drama -- and maybe it would've been if they had dared to take ANYTHING up a notch -- but every aspect of it just says, "space movie" and nothing more.

If this movie was just plain bad, you might have to feel sad for the people that made it, thinking it would work. However, it makes such a leap into the ridiculous that you just have to laugh. A must-see for fans of so-bad-it's-good movies. And whether you love or hate sci-fi, this is a very funny movie.

I give it a 4 -- it may not affect you the way it's supposed to, but it's great entertainment.