Galaxy Quest (1999)

Every now and then you come across little gems that you like surprisingly much, and Galaxy quest is such a movie. Set in present day, the movie centers around the former cast of the fictional tv show Galaxy Quest, who are now hasbeens and get their money doing conventions and humiliating commercials. But what happens when aliens who has seen the tv mistook it for a documentary and wants haphazard has beens to save them and their species from extinction.

Yeah it sounds pretty dodgy I know, but trust me, it isn't. The movie is a really a long send up\parody of Star Trek and other science fictions, but unlike most movies in the same genre, this one doesn't make fun of it's source material by degrading it.

The movie stars Tim Allen whose character obviously is built on William Shatner and James T Kirk(yes both of them), Alan Rickman who is more or less based on Leonard Nimoy, Sigourney Weaver who plays the sexy female crew member whose job in the show was to repeat the computer, Tony Shaloub as the engineer who is just either drugged out or just on a different reality, Darryl Mitchell as the former wonderkid pilot. The leader of the good aliens is played by Enrico Colantoni(best known from Just shoot me) and the evil alien leader is played by Robin Sachs.

However even if all of these do great jobs(particularly Shaloub and Colantoni), it is Sam Rockwell who steals the show. He plays a former extra in the show(who got killed in the first reel), who manages to sneak his way onto performing at a convention with the crew. And he's just named Guy. Everytime he's on the camera he's doing something hilarious, from the girlish scream the first time he meets the aliens, to his whining about his fear of getting killed all the time to how he tries to give advice to Tim Allen when he's beeing chased by a monster to form a "rudimentary lathe"

The film manages to do all the things that made Star Wars great, it's a nice warm film and a great adventure. And it's actually better than any of the Star Trek films, and unlike both of said franchises well acted. It's not an epic story like star wars though, and moves a lot faster. I can't think of anything bad about this movie, it may not be the deepest picture ever made, but it's down to earth morals are hard to deny.

On a side note Sigourney Weaver has never looked better than she did in this movie, and she was pushing 50 in it!

Rating(out of 10)


The imdb page for Galaxy Quest

Short clip from the movie