Galaxy Quest (1999)

I actually had an inner debate about whether or not to rent this for months with each visit to the rental joint (imagine the cartoon Devil and Angel standing on my shoulders; I do). Although my interest in "Star Trek" never extended beyond the first series (how they can take away the goofy special effects and three-breasted green women I'll never know), the idea of a spoof where a washed-up Star Trek-esque crew go on a real cosmic adventure appealed to me. It seemed like the sort of premise that can either reward its audience or kick it repeatedly in the skull until they cried out for mercy. But I was also excited by the involvement of both Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver, and that it was directed by Dean Parisot, who was involved directing episodes of two of my favorite bygone TV series, "Northern Exposure" and "Get A Life."

So what stopped me in my tracks every time? Tim Allen.

Even when I was a wee lad, I hated "Home Improvement" with every fiber of my little being. Even then it seemed like a live-action version of "Family Circus," defanged and sterilized compared to my usual TV pickings, "The Simpsons" and "Married With Children." And, although it's not as if I rushed out to rent a copy of Santa Clause, but Tim Allen's comedic stylings always seemed to me to be somewhere in the same territory as Billy Crystal.

Obviously, though, the Devil on my shoulder won and Galaxy Quest found its way to my VCR. Although it was very much a Hollywood movie and a spoof of "Star Trek" that kept the gloves on (although I don't think anyone who looks at how this film is packaged will think this film is meant to be a savage satire; if anything, it's intended as a homage, not a satire), it was certainly much better than I expected, and far better than it could have been.

The story picks up with the trials and tribulations of the cast of a "Star Trek"-esque show, "Galaxy Quest," years after that show's cancellation. Their lives have now been reduced to coping with obnoxious fans and attending hokey sci-fi conventions...until the former cast's own William Shatner, Jason Nesmith, and his comrades are recruited by a naive civilization, the Thermians, who have happened to base their culture on episodes of the show broadcast into space (of course, one does not need to look further than Earth to see a culture like that...) to save them from systematic genocide at the hands of a far less innocent (but more human) society.

Most of the fun in Galaxy Quest comes out of the cast itself, which obviously had fun with the material. Sigourney Weaver capitalizes on her status as a sci-fi sex goddess while also being the butt of one of the movie's best running jokes (when the crew start their real cosmic adventure, she's reduced to doing the same job she had on the show: repeat whatever the computer said). Alan Rickman does a mean Spock/Leonard Nimoy throughout, although his character does threaten to fall into one-dimensionality and then. But, surprisingly (to me at least), the best performance comes from Tim Allen himself, who makes his character's transition from a depressed, arrogant, and cynical b-list celebrity to a man genuinely excited that his role as a spaceship captain has suddenly become real seem natural. Kudos also go to the actors and actresses portraying the Thermians, who not only capture the aliens' awkwardness in their assumed human forms, but also depict their society's bizarre naivete while making it tragic, not hokey.

Unfortunately, the script does take up to serve up some Hollywood cheese. Although it is quite diligent in mimicking the formulas of the episodes of the first "Star Trek" (much of the movie's middle act has the crew going to an undiscovered but inhabitable planet to find fuel for the ship) and even takes a sharp jab at the 'tradition' of including cute aliens for no reason, there are some scenes that blatantly read off as "INSERT SENTIMENTAL MOMENT." It's a good thing these are outweighed by some slightly more subtle aspects of the plot: for instance, there is the barely spoken fact that the 'heroic' aliens have a degree of benevolence completely unknown to us, while the race that is persecuting them to extinction is very close in their behavior and rationale to human.

All in all, though, not a bad film by any means. Perhaps not what one would want a spoof of "Star Trek" to look like, but it had to have been good to have made me reconsider my vehement anti-Tim Allen agenda.