Herald Rating: * * * *
Cast: Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalboub
Director: Dean Parisot
Rating: PG (medium-level violence)
Running time: 102 minutes
Opens: Advance previews today and tomorrow, opens Thursday at Village and Hoyts cinemas
Review: Russell Baillie
Poor William Shatner. The actor formerly known as James T. Kirk
came up for discussion in The Fight Club as the celebrity Edward Norton wouldn't mind taking on in a scrap.
Now along comes Galaxy Quest - a spoof of all things Trekkie - and it would seem Shatner is in for another good kicking.
He gets one of sorts, and not just with the casting of Tim Allen, another television ham, as the stunt-Kirk of the piece. The results are hilarious.
But Galaxy Quest manages to send up, with a particular affection, the inability of Shatner and Co to escape their television past.
It may also skewer the world of sci-fi nerdom, but it ends up celebrating it too, and it does that with a script of consistently sparking wit that thankfully takes this far closer to an intergalactic Men In Black - or a wisecracking Klingonbusters - than the dumb parody of Spaceballs.
We find Allen and the rest of the cast of long-cancelled late-70s telly show Galaxy Quest still milking what's left of their profile at sci-fi conventions and store openings.
One day, however, the hungover pretend-spaceship commander gets a visit by some particularly enthusiastic fans, long-time viewers of the show from a light year or two away in the Klatu Nebula, who have taken every heroic episode as a historic document.
The sweetly naive but technologically advanced Thermians face extinction from some menacing faux-Klingons led by the ruthless Sarris. So they beam up some of the old crew of the NSEA Protector - Allen's commander and a Nimoy-ish Rickman, a Scotty-ish Shalboub and a busty and bimbo-ish Weaver - to a ship the Thermians have custombuilt to lead them into battle.
Along the way there's some sly digs at Trek lore production values and convolutions of plot, an encounter with a giant monster made entirely of rock, and a space battle that would have done any of the Trek movies proud.
The bigger the Trekkie you are, the harder you'll laugh. But even if you don't know your dilithium crystals from your tribbles, you'll be kept well amused. And in the end, Shatner should really take Galaxy Quest less as a kicking and more as a backhanded compliment.
