Mike_Bracken's Full Review: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie: Best Brains/ Universal Pictures Rating: USA: PG-13/ Australia: PG
Face it, we’ve all seen some pretty bad films—movies so inept that we’re left sitting in the theater (or in front of the TV) with our mouths agape wondering just what the filmmakers were thinking. Or better yet, we’ve all seen films that are so bad, so full of terrible dialogue, that we’ve felt compelled to talk back to the screen. Mystery Science Theater 3000 feels your pain, and these guys have taken the task of riffing on bad films and elevated it to an artform.
For the uninitiated, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K to the truly devoted) is a pop-culture institution. Dr. Clayton Forrester (Trace Beaulieu) is an evil scientist fixated on world domination. In order to enslave mankind, he’s had the brilliant idea of beating us into submission by forcing us to watch the ultimate in bad films. In order to test effectiveness of his Z-movie monstrosities, he beams them up into outer space. There, on the isolated Satellite of Love, Michael Nelson is forced to watch films that no one should have to endure. In order to keep his sanity, he’s got two robot friends, Tom Servo (voiced by Kevin Murphy) and Crow T. Robot (voiced by Trace Beaulieu) who watch the movies with him. Together, these three smart-alecks lambaste the onscreen action through scores of well-written jokes that skewer everything from the actors, the sets, the dialogue, and more.
The show, which debuted in 1988 on a local Minneapolis station, has ripped on a diverse range of grade Z schlockers in just about every conceivable genre over the years. For their first (and only) big screen outing, Mike and the bots tackle the 1950’s sci-fi film, This Island Earth, a movie that was fairly well regarded back in the days of its initial release. This Island Earth is your typical 50’s sci-fi film—aliens (who look strangely human except for their large foreheads) from a dying planet need Earth’s best and brightest minds to save their homeland. When that fails, they intend to take over our planet and enslave us all. On it’s own, it’s not a very interesting movie. However, with Nelson, Crow, and Servo ragging on everything from the star’s deep voice to his wormy sidekick, it becomes far more entertaining fare than it has any right to be.
From the film’s opening credits all the way through to the final frame (the guys even riff on the ending credits) MST3K: The Movie is an all out assault of pop-culture humor and references guaranteed to delight just about anyone with a sense of humor.
The jokes fly fast and furious here, which makes viewing difficult because stopping long enough to guffaw at one punchline can cause you to miss the next three. Fortunately, the guys have added several cut scenes (much like they did for commercials when the show was still on TV). These deal with the happenings on board the Satellite of Love, and while amusing, they’re not as out and out hilarious as the scenes where the guys make fun of the movie.
If you never had the good fortune to catch MST3K during the years it was featured on Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Channel, then I’d highly recommend checking out this film. It’s a great starting point for fledgling Msties (as fans of the show call themselves) and will prepare you to sit through some of the really atrocious fare (like Manos: The Hands of Fate and Red Zone Cuba) which have been released on VHS by Rhino Home Video. Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie gets my highest recommendation. Hi Keeba!
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