n Earth outpost off Saturn is under attack by a cybernetic intruder so powerful that air and ground defenses quickly fail; the remaining defenders hunker down in a sealed room deep in the complex. Among them are a mogul named Saggs (Shane Rimmer) and his pet genius (Charles Dance), watching with anticipation. Soon the intruder bursts in and fries the defenders one by one--but when it's the scientist's turn, he calmly lifts a remote control and switches the monster off. Elated, Saggs congratulates him on a successful test and ponders conquering Earth. But Saggs needs "deniability"--so he has the robot fry the hapless scientist.
Meanwhile, independent trucker John Canyon (Hopper) has his own troubles: InterPork's nasty administrator (George Wendt) won't pay him for his behind-schedule load of genetically engineered "square pigs." A confrontation in a space-station truck stop waitressed by John's girlfriend Cindy (Mazar) leads to a fistfight. The company truckers stand aside, but tenderfoot Mike (Dorff) jumps in to help John and Cindy. When the administrator is sucked rear-first through a blown porthole, the three escape into the bowels of the station to see the creepy Mister Zesty, who consigns them a rush shipment of contraband sex dolls bound for Earth as their price for his assistance in getting off the station.
Their rig damaged by asteroids, the three wait for help deep in the "scum cluster," only to be swallowed whole by an enormous pirate vessel. Its sadistic captain is the genius who built the cyber monsters: Left for dead, he had rebuilt himself using spare parts and turned his fury on Saggs's all-powerful company, hijacking its shipments. Distracted by the scantily clad Cindy, he doesn't realize that John's consignment isn't sex dolls until one of them is activated. He quickly learns that the space truckers are carrying 5,000 biomechanical superwarriors, one of which wipes out most of his crew. John, Mike and Cindy escape with cargo intact just as the pirate ship explodes, but the dying madman warns them that the warriors will activate in exponential waves. John's only choice is to risk his life trying to burn up his cargo in the atmosphere before the monsters wake up and use his rig to threaten Earth.
A movie worth $27 million...sort of
Sterling Home Entertainment claims it spent $27 million on Space Truckers, and the special effects certainly are superior for a non-theatrical science fiction action film. The space visuals, which range from the rig and the vast pirate ship to black asteroids that look like huge clumps of onyx, are good and in places striking (at least on the small screen), and the cybernetic warriors are appropriately fearsome. Other efforts are less successful--in particular the half-hearted effort to simulate weightlessness aboard John's rig.
Hopper works hard to keep his scenes interesting. What credibility the film earns from Hopper's professionalism, however, is quickly snatched away by Mazar's one-note performance. In fairness, Mazar is little aided by a script and direction that deprive her of any motivation beyond "I'll do anything to get to Earth" (where her mother is laid up). Dorff neither adds nor subtracts, delivering his lines with Gen-X rebelliousness and doffing his shirt on cue.
Any movie called Space Truckers ought to have fun with itself, and indeed there are good jokes and sight gags here and there, though some are a little problematic. For example, Cindy is willing to bed the hideous captain (she just has to get home to see her mom), and in the bedroom scene it turns out that his rebuilt reproductive organs have a lawn-mower pull-start. Yet as much fun as this is, it repudiates the scene's considerable tension and replaces it with a Howard the Duck ridiculousness.
The science fiction film universe is sharply divided between big epic films and little actioners, and in places Space Truckers stands with its box-office brethren in the latter camp (there's slightly more plot here than in Starship Troopers, for instance). Although it won't live down through the ages, it might fill a dull Tuesday night.
