Space Truckers

B-Movie GOLD! A ridiculous story about truckers in space dealing with super deathbots and a cybernetic warlord with a pull start penis that may as well have been a modified weed whacker that he threatens Mazar with. It is absolutely nuts, the effects are crazy, the story barely even tries to make sense and you get bad space effects and super visible wire work all over the place.

If that sounds like a fun time, then this is the movie for you! Personally, I couldn't stop laughing at it.

Space Truckers is a perfect B-Movie. It has a title which makes anyone cringe, and a lightweight plot with no originality, except perhaps the concept of a square pig. That said, as long as you watch it with no expectations you will be pleasantly surprised. The quality of acting is generally good, with a competent cast (particularly Charles Dance) managing to avoid laughing their way through the script. The ending however is almost unwatchable, yet I can't escape from the feeling that this film is entertaining, which is all that any movie should aim to do.

What an unusual, but never before thought of idea! It gets big points for originality by reviving the old days of 70s "truckin' man" flicks and updating the genre into a sci-fi visual feast that compares closely to STARSHIP TROOPERS! Imagine if Bo and Luke Duke were flying around in their orange coaster without jumping over obstacles, and avoiding capture by Sheriff Roscoe! There has to be a good sense of fantasy surrounding this old fad. Well, I'm not gonna get all hyped up about SPACE TRUCKERS, which is mainly your regular dosage of outer space mayhem. The simple action looks as good as the rich visual quality, but don't take it too hard. It plunges into the offbeat stage, and loses its sci-fi luster to some needless "hot" sexuality (added by the lack of gravity), and a captivity scene. I can tell that the minds of script writers skirted around the explicit subject matter, just to prevent any further boiling on the offensive side. You know, the two lovebirds running and floating around in their undies. And could it be that there are two different endings? Campy as it will sound, there is reason to have fun with it after all. Okay by me.

OK, this is not the best movie in the world, but it's pretty funny. It's clearly tongue in cheek and doesn't take itself seriously at all. You just have to watch it and enjoy its cheesiness. I mean, before this, Stuart Gordon wrote Body Snatchers, Castle Freak and The Dentist. You would probably expect some sort of body horror extravaganza, not the pastel colored corporate world of space transportation in the near future. But the thing is fun. It's like Super Mario Brothers mixed with Hardware.

Bottom line: it's not good, but it's not bad either. And it's silly fun.

Space Truckers is too vulgar and raunchy for the art house crowd, too clever for the great unwashed, and too silly for anyone expecting to be convinced that they're watching "real" science. The lines are deliberately dorky, the special effects entirely unconvincing (who cares?), and the movie adds up to complete absurdity. I've seen it more than once, and it gets funnier every time. For people who complain that Dennis Hopper must have been really hard up to have agreed to do it, what about Charles Dance, a superb actor (Mr. Tulkinghorn in the new PBS "Bleak House")? They seemed to get the jokes, played it with zest, and managed to make it fly. I thought it was hysterically funny.