Galaxy Quest Review
by Ed Johnson-Ott (ejohnsonott AT prodigy DOT net)January 2nd, 2000
Galaxy Quest (1999)
Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, Daryl Mitchell, Enrico Colantoni, Robin Sachs, Patrick Breen, Missi Pyle, Jed Rees, Justin Long, Jeremy Howard. Screenplay by Robert Gordon and David Howard.
Directed by Dean Parisot.
104 minutes
Rated PG, 3.5 stars (out of five stars)
Review by Ed Johnson-Ott, NUVO Newsweekly www.nuvo-online.com
Archive reviews at http://us.imdb.com/ReviewsBy?Edward+Johnson-Ott
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The spirited comedy "Galaxy Quest," which follows the has-been crew of an old "Star Trek" style TV show when they get scooped up by a group of aliens who mistake them for genuine interstellar heroes, would make a fine companion piece to the light-hearted documentary, "Trekkies." Both films look at the people who attend sci-fi conventions, from hopelessly typecast actors who depend on the gatherings for their bread and butter, to those fans who dress up like their heroes and sometimes appear to have trouble recognizing the line between reality and pretend. Both productions are rather slight affairs, choosing to mostly stay on the surface level rather than digging a little deeper. And both movies are far more entertaining than one would ever expect them to be.
The story begins many years after the cancellation of "Galaxy Quest," a cheesy TV show quite similar to the original "Star Trek" series. Desperate for work, the cast travels the sci-fi convention circuit; signing autographs, posing for photos and dealing with impossibly obscure trivia questions from devoted fans. When a group of folks in odd uniforms ask series star Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) to help save their people from a galactic meanie, the actor takes their words as a proposal for a paying gig in some dorky role-playing game.
He's wrong. The "fans" are bona fide aliens assuming human form, members of a gentle species called Thermians. These sweet creatures, with no understanding of the concept of fiction, perceived the transmissions of "Galaxy Quest" they picked up through space to be documentaries of historic events. So when the evil space pirate Sarris (Robin Sachs, decked out like a giant grasshopper with Borg accessories) assaults their race, they turn to the valiant "Galaxy Quest" crew for help. To make things easier for their heroes, they've even built a full-scale working duplicate of the vessel used in the TV show, unaware that the original ship was nothing but a tiny model. In short order, the stunned "Galaxy Quest" cast find themselves in the cosmos, with the fate of a race in their hands.
The high-concept premise works because of some clever set pieces, imaginative special effects and appealing performances from the cast. Tim Allen is fun as the "Galaxy Quest" Commander, an overstuffed, insensitive egocentric actor clearly modeled after "Star Trek's" William Shatner. The "Trek" parallels continue with his cast-mates. Sigourney Weaver, decked out in a blond wig, is this crew's Uhuru, the token female relegated to repeating computer commands. Alan Rickman draws big laughs as the Spock of the group, a bitter performer stuck under alien make-up who has always believed the show to be beneath his talents ("I'm a Shakespearean actor!" he complains). Daryl Mitchell is fine as the now-grown actor who played the plucky kid on the old series.
Tony Shalhoub absolutely steals the show as Fred Kwan, the most adaptive of the "Galaxy Quest" cast. In the show, he played a character of Asian heritage, despite the fact that he obviously wasn't (Scotty? Chekov? Take your pick). In the cast's real-life outer space adventure, he is absolutely unflappable, and Shalhoub's low-key line readings are hilarious. Sam Rockwell, fresh from a maniacal turn in "The Green Mile," is a hoot as a hanger-on who once played a nameless crewman killed in the first act of an episode (think of anyone in a red-shirt on "Star Trek"). Rockwell spends most of the film expecting to be knocked off for cheap dramatic effect.
While "Galaxy Quest" mines sci-fi clichés for lots of laughs, it could have been funnier had the writers thrown in even more pop culture references for die-hard fans. The film plays like a straightforward first-season episode of "The Simpsons," before the writers hit their stride and began to stuff the series with too many gags to take in on the initial viewing. Still, the movie is refreshingly benign (due in large part to the naïve, lovable Thermians) and does contain some surprisingly subtle observations (when placed on the real spaceship, the cast members immediately fall into their old roles, as if they were locked in some TV character caste system). As comedies go, "Galaxy Quest" may not reach its full potential, but it's a fine way to while away 104 minutes.
© 1999 Ed Johnson-Ott
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