t's been 20 years since the network canceled the TV show Galaxy Quest, but
the actors who played the intrepid crew of the starship Protector
continue to make convention appearances for their adoring fans (called
"Questrians"). Most of the out-of-work actors are not thrilled about it. "How did I come to this?" Alexander Dane (Rickman) laments. "I played Richard the Third." But Jason Nesmith (Allen), who starred as Capt. Peter Quincy Taggart, still loves the fans--until he overhears some kids laughing at how pathetic he is.
Hung over in his hilltop L.A. house, Nesmith receives a visit from some
weird-looking guys in Quest uniforms who ask for his help. Thinking
they're overzealous fans, Nesmith agrees, and is taken away by limo. He awakens on what he thinks is a set of the Protector, where he is told to negotiate an agreement with Sarris, a lobster-faced alien.
Nesmith plays along, orders the ship to fire at Sarris, then looks for the
exit. That's when he's covered in space goo and hurled through the cosmos
back to his house.
Realizing that's he's actually been in space, he convinces his colleagues
to join him on another trip. They include Gwen DeMarco (Weaver), the buxom
blonde who played Lt. Tawny Madison; Dane, who played alien Dr. Lazarus;
Fred Kwan (Shalhoub), who played engineer Chen; and Tommy Webber (Daryl
Mitchell), who played navigator Laredo.
Once zapped aboard the starship, the actors discover that the weird guys are Thermians from the Klatu Nebula who think the actors really are the
Quest characters they portrayed. Seems the aliens have
misinterpreted transmissions of the TV show as "historical documents," and
have recreated their society in Quest's image. Now they want the
crew to help save them from the depredations of Sarris, who's trying to
exterminate the Thermians.
It's all play time for the actors--until Sarris shows up and starts
shooting. Narrowly escaping, the group decides it's time to go back to
Earth. Nesmith tries to convince them that they can help the Thermians.
"Are you crazy?" Gwen says. "We're actors! Not astronauts!"
"Never give up, never surrender!"
Galaxy Quest starts out as an unsubtle parody of the Star
Trek phenomenon, but quickly morphs into something else: a post-modern space opera. In the same way Scream satirized horror movies, Galaxy Quest takes on Trek and its ilk with affection, irony and self-awareness, to great comic effect.
At the same time, the filmmakers have true respect for the genre. The
result is both a rousing adventure and a very funny comedy about the
fish-out-of-water dilemma of the actors who only gradually come to realize
the gravity of their predicament.
The films's writers obviously studied Star Trek well, and the original series provides
the templates for Quest's plot developments, and for its characters
and the actors who portray them. Allen turns in a good approximation of
William Shatner and Capt. James Kirk. Rickman is particularly funny as the
frustrated Shakespearean thespian Dane, forever typecast as a heroic alien,
bringing to mind Leonard Nimoy and his own albatross, Mr. Spock. And
there's great irony in having Warrant Officer Ripley playing a Yeoman Rand type.
The plot takes the most tired cliches of the genre, wholeheartedly
commits to their execution and lampoons them at the same time. Laredo, the
ship's navigator, is supposed to be an ace starship pilot, but the actor
Tommy Webber can barely get the ship out of the garage without scraping the fender. In one scene the characters find themselves crawling through narrow tubes
("Ducts. Why is it always ducts?" Weaver complains). And the
ship threatens to self-destruct unless Capt. Taggart/ Nesmith can deactivate
it at the last minute. ("You don't know how to shut down a neutron reactor,
unless you took a Learning Annex course I don't know about," Weaver tells
Allen).
The action is also imaginative, aided by high-quality special effects
from Industrial Light & Magic. High points include a
CGI monster whose name, Rock, isn't just a handle. There's also a terrific scene in which Weaver and Allen must navigate an only-in-a-writer's-imagination tunnel of deadly pistons.
Beyond that, the film doesn't shirk the emotional journey of the
aliens and actors alike. All in all, this is one quest not to be missed.
osing a key industry can be devastating for a small town. When
Exceptional Vista's nut factory closes, the population shrinks and
supporting businesses go bankrupt. With nothing to entertain them, the
remaining citizens turn to lives of fishing and sexual deviance. This isolated community is effectively cut off from the outside world.
Shortly after the televisions conk out, strangers begin to arrive: a
variety of traveling sales representatives, government operatives,
lascivious campers and Dr. Karel Lamonte (Campbell Scott), a famous atomic scientist on vacation.
Lamonte checks in to the Fawkes Den Motel and is drawn into
an unlikely love triangle with the motel's proprietors. Beautiful Sandy Fawkes (Loewi) is a
self-taught quantum physicist, and her younger brother, Guy (Tom Scott), is a devoted
and over-protective business partner. Lamonte finds himself attracted both
to Sandy's exuberance and to Guy's innocence.
Lamonte's hopes for a peaceful vacation are shattered when he
stumbles over the mangled remains of a local fisherman. Soon bodies are
turning up everywhere. Local law enforcement is too erratic to investigate
the killings properly, and it falls to Lamonte, Sandy and Guy to find the
culprits. It is clear that something is eating the citizens of
Exceptional Vista, but which of the new arrivals is responsible?
Classic-style camp
Top of the Food Chain is a parody of classic SF movies like
Them!, films in which a scientist-hero faces a catastrophic threat to
humanity. Shot in the style of such classic films,
the movie has a retro look that stands opposed to its modern-day gender roles and sexuality sensibilities. As Sandy, Loewi gives a strong performance, and the role she plays in the movie's resolution is
one of the film's strengths.
The script is a mixture of genuinely funny moments and jokes that fall
flat. Screenwriters Bedard and Lalonde are content to offer a
broad-based lampoon of their subject matter, with comparatively little in
the way of tight focus. The movie is at its best when it targets the
fundamental beliefs that underpinned its predecessors: comfortable
assumptions
about the rightness of Christianity, nuclear families, subservient women, and
the ultimate power of science to defuse any threat.
Unfortunately, the movie does not dig deeply into these issues, and Top
of the Food Chain is further weakened when it falls into creating
weirdness for its own sake.
Much of the problem with the film is that it is a parody. Instead of
dealing with original material, the filmmakers are mining for humor in a genre that is, in its original form, already pretty funny. However, Top of the Food Chain is at least as good as another recent SF parody, Mars Attacks! People who enjoyed that movie will like this one as well.
