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GALAXY QUEST |
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Tim
Allen, Sigourney Weaver
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FUN
PREMISE
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by
Nestor u. Torre (Viewfinder column)
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| "GALAXY Quest" has a fun premise: The cast of a TV sci-fi series like "Star Trek" squabbles among each other until they are unexpectedly thrust into outer space to deal with a very real problem involving two alien civilizations engaged in a bitter fight for supremacy and survival. |
| The hitch is, the fictive space heroes don't really know anything about space travel and weaponry, so they are no help at all to the "good" aliens who are being threatened by an evil race of hideous-looking intergalactic power grabbers. |
| The TV actors are led by their "Commander" (Tim Allen), a proud has-been who can't face up to the fact that the TV series has seen better days. In fact, he and his stellar crew don't do much these days except attend sci-fi conventions to sign autographs for their diehard groupies. |
| When they are given their real-life mission in outer space, however, they are forced to get their act together and behave like true-blue heroes. Given their incompetence and cowardice, that's a really tall order, but they eventually manage to pull it off. |
| Ironically, they do it with the help of the nerdy groupies whom they used to scorn in the past. The groupies are able to get hold of diagrams of the structure of the spaceship the TV actors have to break into, and guide them toward their objective: a top-secret core of inexhaustible power that the enemy covets. |
| While the movie's premise is novel and entertaining, the film encounters some rough spots along the way to its denouement. The problem is a lack of sustained inventiveness that makes some scenes droop when they should soar. |
| After a while, the ugly and vicious villains lose their ability to terrify because they keep repeating pretty much the same scare tactics. That's why, when new villains appear, like a menacing monster made out of huge boulders, viewers are ecstatically grateful for the much-needed change of pace. |
| But the movie is really more than just a sci-fi comedy. Without beating the audience over the head with it, the production is also interested in the TV actors' interpersonal relationships, and in how their real-life mission changes them from spoiled, squabbling starlets into authentic heroes. |
| In this area, the film's success level is higher. Allen and his costars (Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman) create feckless characters who are terrified into discovering their genuinely heroic core, and the movie's instructive points come through with verve and humor. |
| from: The philippine Daily Inquirer May 10, 2000 |
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