Moontrap

Wacky, gory, and strangely humorous, "Moontrap" is one of those low budget films that forces its way into your heart. You just can't help but watch all of "Moontrap" once you accidentally run into it when channel surfing. Cheesy, and almost parodoxial of contemporary space action movies, "Moontrap" plays out into a required viewing B-movie for any one remotely interested in sci-fi. The plot is simple and standard issue: Walter Koenig is Col. Jason Grant (a.k.a., Pavel Chekov), a single-parent, astronaut burn-out who brings home an alien artifact. When NASA's computers find out that hostile alien life originated in the Moon's Prometheus Crater, Col. Grant is sent with a special team to eliminate an army of football-shaped alien eggs in stasis. One can pretty much guess what happens, and this basically makes "Moontrap" a space slasher film. All in all an incredibly stupid film, but well worth viewing. Very similar to "Virus" in some respects.

The good? Effects and props... and Koenig.

The bad? Everything else.

Apart from its value as 80s nostalgia, there's not much to see. The 1950s did this type of stuff much better.

It would have made a good TV movie, though.

I had me some fun revisiting MOONTRAP the other day. Had not seen it since my teen-days. A small but ambitious sci-fi/horror film about a race of robotic aliens hidden on the dark side of the moon, occupying themselves since ages with building a giant mother-ship - that thing was huge! - to invade earth and using human bodies for spare-parts (VIRUS with Jamie Lee Curtis, anyone?). A weird film altogether with a lot of great and some not-so-great special effects, including nifty looking miniatures. Starring none less than Walter Koenig (from the original STAR TREK series) and Bruce Campbell, who's acting his way very inappropriately through this film, like if he was convinced he was doing another EVIL DEAD film. Can't really call this a great film, with its pacing problems and illogical goings-on, but it was a blast seeing it again.

MOONTRAP has the perfect genre cast: THE EVIL DEAD's Bruce Campbell and STAR TREK's Walter Koenig team up as a pair of astronauts who are busy investigating a robotic mystery on the surface of the Moon. That set-up sounds great, but in reality the execution turns out to be quite pedestrian; this has the look and feel of an Albert Pyun movie, say, rather than a 'proper', well made movie.

It looks cheap and it is. About the only thing MOONTRAP has going for it are a series of robotic creations which are pretty good in a cheesy '80s kind of way. The animation is fairly decent, with some scenes bringing to mind the likes of ROBOCOP, but it's the story that also lets this one down. There's little to no scope here, just characters wandering around aimlessly and fighting repetitively.

Campbell is given short shrift by the script and that awful haircut of his doesn't help. Koenig is, somewhat hilariously, playing a youthful hero type (his character appears to be at least 20 years younger than the actor), the sort of guy who gets the girl at the end, which is a little weird and unworkable. But really, there's not a lot going on here, especially for fans of the sci-fi genre who will have seen it all before.

Let me get to it,this movie was good and original, a little corny in places, but damn good non the less.

Walter Koenig and Bruce Campbell are great together and have good chemistry. I like how this is kinda like a buddy movie and a monster movie blended into one. And the space woman they find is very hot, I don't know her but she did a good job as well, especially being mute for most of it.

I think this was well made for it's time, I think what works best about this is, it's high concept story and chemistry with it's characters, having never seen the movie before I think it has aged well, I also like that the movie released the year I was born.

Overall, a well made film that is entertaining, and I hope to see more stories to this soon. Now I have seen "Moontrap: Target Earth" staring Sarah Butler, which described by the filmmakers is a stand alone sequel. I personally liked it, I seen that one first before this one and I can honestly say this movie is much better, but I still liked the sequel, it's a guilty pleasure of mine and so is this one.

I give this one a 5/10. A cool, fun B-movie. Highly recommended.