Careers of many great film makers often reach point that cinephiles and fans would later wish to be the last, because afterwards follows inevitable and embarrassing decline. In case of Mel Brooks such point was his 1987 science fiction parody Spaceballs.
The title refers to planet Spaceball, which has under leadership of incompetent President Scroob (played by Mel Brooks) exhausted its reserves of fresh air. This is something in ample supply at neighbouring planet Druidia, whose King Roland (played by Dick Van Patten) wants to marry his daughter Princess Vespa (played by Daphne Zuniga) to the Prince Valium (played by Jim J. Bullock)). Vespa is less enthusiastic about marriage and escapes from the altar together with her droid Dot Matrix (played by Lorene Yarnell and voiced by Joan Rivers). This gives opportunity to Spaceball commander Dark Helmet (played by Rick Moranis) to capture the princess with enormous spaceship called Spaceball One. The plan is to coerce her father to give codes of shield that protects Druidia, after which Spaceballs would suck the air out of the planet. Those plans are interrupted by arrival of mercenary adventurer Lone Starr (played by Bill Pullman) who, together with loyal mawg (half man half dog) Barf (played by John Candy) is hired to rescue Vespa and bring her back to her father. Starr, Barf, Vespa and Dot end on desert moon of Vega, where Starr meets Yoghurt (played by Brooks), spiritual guru who would teach him how to master powers of Schwartz.
In this film Brooks, at the time known as one of Hollywood’s greatest masters of parody, deals with science fiction films, or, to be more precise, films that made the original Star Wars trilogy. Although it had decent box office results, Spaceballs was greeted negatively by critics and it is today considered one of Brooks’ lesser works. Some of the critics complaints are valid; if Brooks wanted to reach same level of quality like in Frankenstein Junior or Blazing Saddles, he obviously failed. Some critics tried to explain it by Brooks having little respect or inclination towards science fiction as he had with classic horrors or westerns parodied in his earlier works. Others pointed to Brooks obtaining George Lucas’ blessing for lampooning his work and later enjoying services of Lucas’ special effects company, which might explain why Spaceballs wasn’t as sharp as it could have been. In any case, quality of humour in this film varies very much – some jokes are brilliant, some uninspired and unfunny, some dance on the edge of good taste, while some demand too much familiarity with American Jewish culture. Brooks doesn’t target only Star Wars and film includes some very obvious references to Star Trek, Planet of the Apes and other genre classics. In couple of inspired moments Brooks tries “meta” approach, like in the scene when Dark Helmet wants to locate protagonists by watching VHS copy of Spaceballs. Brooks also allowed himself to be critical of business practices of 1980s Hollywood, partly obsession with merchandise and desire to exploit any successful film with instant and uninspired sequel. From today’s perspective those scenes looks quite prophetic, because they point to unstoppable Disneyfication of Hollywood.
Many shortcomings of the script are, however, more than compensated by brilliant casting. Bill Pullman, who was rather unknown at the time, is excellent in portraying the character based on Han Solo. Rick Moranis is even more impressive in his impersonation of Darth Vader, reimagined as short, nerdy and soft-spoken man. Daphne Zuniga is wonderful as Princess Vespa, delivering perfect combination of sex appeal and humour that makes her look like prime comedienne, very much in the same league as Terri Garr and Madeline Kahn who starred in Brooks’ previous films. John Candy, despite being burdened by heavy makeup and often uninspired lines of dialogue, does more decent job in the role of character obviously inspired by Chewbacca. Brooks himself is very good in double role of pathetically villanous President and Yoda-like guru. Although Brooks’ old associate John Morris fails to deliver memorable music soundtrack, this is somewhat compensated by title song by Spinners, which is quite catchy and much better than similar examples of 1980s style film music. Spaceballs ultimately became big hit at home video and gradually built cult status, and nowadays is well-liked and often-quoted film, at least by 1980s science fiction film. Sadly, Brooks spectacularly failed to repeat even a fraction of such success with his next three films.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/957-spaceballs Critic: AA
