Space Truckers

The plot: Space truckers run into problems with space pirates, space politicians, and killer robots (who, technically, are not space robots).

Space Truckers is essentially a low budget, B movie space opera that's a parody of low budget, B movie space operas. It's full of cheesy lines, cheesy set design, and cheesy special effects. In fact, it's such a cheesy movie that it sometimes makes The Rocky Horror Picture Show look like The Godfather. At its heart, this movie is stupid, pointless, mindless, and has nothing to say about the human condition, except that it's funny to laugh at bad movies. If you're a Stuart Gordon fan, that's probably enough for you to enjoy this. As an added bonus, it's got a great cast, including many B movie veterans.

It can be enjoyed as either a so-bad-it's-good B movie or a clever parody. Like most Stuart Gordon films, it has rather narrow demographic appeal, and people who are not genre fans (or Stuart Gordon fans) are likely to hate it. I love Stanley Kubrick as much as the next film snob, but the world also needs ridiculous movies like Space Truckers and The Toxic Avenger. In fact, this movie is something of a marriage between Troma and New World Pictures. If you're unfamiliar with those studios -- or you dislike their copious output -- I'd strongly warn you away from this film. Space Truckers was reviled by the critics, rejected by audiences, and thought to be unintentionally funny by B movie fans. Well, for the true believers, this is an awesome movie, and nothing will ever convince us otherwise. Such is the cult of Stuart Gordon!

What an unusual, but never before thought of idea! It gets big points for originality by reviving the old days of 70s "truckin' man" flicks and updating the genre into a sci-fi visual feast that compares closely to STARSHIP TROOPERS! Imagine if Bo and Luke Duke were flying around in their orange coaster without jumping over obstacles, and avoiding capture by Sheriff Roscoe! There has to be a good sense of fantasy surrounding this old fad. Well, I'm not gonna get all hyped up about SPACE TRUCKERS, which is mainly your regular dosage of outer space mayhem. The simple action looks as good as the rich visual quality, but don't take it too hard. It plunges into the offbeat stage, and loses its sci-fi luster to some needless "hot" sexuality (added by the lack of gravity), and a captivity scene. I can tell that the minds of script writers skirted around the explicit subject matter, just to prevent any further boiling on the offensive side. You know, the two lovebirds running and floating around in their undies. And could it be that there are two different endings? Campy as it will sound, there is reason to have fun with it after all. Okay by me.

Space Truckers is too vulgar and raunchy for the art house crowd, too clever for the great unwashed, and too silly for anyone expecting to be convinced that they're watching "real" science. The lines are deliberately dorky, the special effects entirely unconvincing (who cares?), and the movie adds up to complete absurdity. I've seen it more than once, and it gets funnier every time. For people who complain that Dennis Hopper must have been really hard up to have agreed to do it, what about Charles Dance, a superb actor (Mr. Tulkinghorn in the new PBS "Bleak House")? They seemed to get the jokes, played it with zest, and managed to make it fly. I thought it was hysterically funny.

Right, well I had the opportunity to sit down and watch the 1996 movie "Space Truckers" for the first time ever here in 2021. I didn't even know about the movie prior to now.

So of course, I was somewhat surprised to see the likes of Dennis Hopper and Charles Dance in a movie such as this. Needless to say, of course, that I just had to sit down and watch it.

And yeah, "Space Truckers" was every bit as corny and campy as the title suggest. But it was actually an enjoyable and watchable movie. I found the movie, as written by Stuart Gordon and Ted Mann, to actually be rather entertaining. There was just something truly unique about the whole cheesy feel of the movie.

"Space Truckers" is a lean-back-and-munch-on-popcorn kind of movie. It is not a movie that you should take overly serious, though it does provide good entertainment.

Visually then "Space Truckers" was actually rather interesting. There were lots of nice designs and concept ideas. Sure, the effects weren't always up there to match the ideas, but they worked as intended. And I do love the scenes where you see the harnesses suspending the actors floating around. It seemed like the post-production people didn't even bother to cut them out of the scenes.

This 1996 sci-fi adventure comedy has a pretty interesting cast ensemble, with the likes of Dennis Hopper, Charles Dance, Debi Mazar, Sean Lawlor, George Wendt and Barbara Crampton.

I can warmly recommend that you sit down to watch "Space Truckers", should you get the chance to do so. Especially if you enjoy light sci-fi movies that don't really take themselves overly serious.

My rating of director Stuart Gordon's 1996 "Space Truckers" lands on a six out of ten stars. You haven't seen everything before you've seen a square pig.

This is a good B-Grade film, and there are many reasons to watch it.

First, and the reason I watched it: Debi Mazar is gorgeous and gets plenty of quality screen time.

Second: the story line is interesting and imaginative.

Third: the special effects are more than decent when one considers the mid-range success this film's creators would have been aiming for.

Fourth: the acting from the main pair (Charles Dance & Dennis Hopper) was spot on - considering this film was meant to be a space adventure/comedy.

Fifth: the design of ships and cargo carriers was very good.

Sixth: almost all of the dialogue was well written.

Seventh: the film should provide many laughs all the way through.

So why the terrible 4.9 rating? Is the film badly edited and hard to follow? Absolutely not. On the contrary this side of things was very well handled, and the film is very easy to follow with no errors of continuance.

Did the film suffer from bad casting? Definitely not, and both Charles and Dennis would be irreplaceable in my opinion. Remember Dennis Hopper's terrific one liners in Water World? Well, he repeats that performance here in Space Truckers. Besides, we get to see Dennis play a heroic character for a change!

Does the film suffer from a lack of character development like some reviewers have said? Utter rubbish! I can't say much here that would not give elements of the outcome of the story away, but I will say that if you miss character development in this movie then you didn't watch it properly.

And one last thing; this movie is close to the mark as far as the reality of our world is concerned. Technology has created power for some people that we should all be very concerned about, and while Space Truckers is a comedy, I felt it hit very close to home on a few fronts.