Moontrap (1989)

Truly Dreadful Film

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Star Trek's Walter Koenig and The Evil Dead's Bruce Campbell are astronauts who discover a wrecked spacecraft orbiting the moon. They bring back some debris which turns out to be a killer robot. Later, they're sent back to the moon to investigate further, and discover an ancient astronaut (Leigh Lombardi) who has been in suspended animation up there for millennia. This is a very cheap B-movie. It's kind of amusing, but certainly not very good. I lost interest and got distracted during the last half hour, and there seemed to be some big twists, but I watched it a second time and it turned out to be disappointingly straightforward.

Walter Koenig takes on a starring role as Col. Jason Grant, who, along with his co-pilot Ray Tanner(played by Bruce Campbell) is manning a routine space shuttle flight sometime in the 1990's when they encounter a derelict alien spaceship containing an ancient humanoid corpse and a self-contained cylinder that are brought back to Earth where they cause a deadly incident that convinces authorities to send Grant & Tanner back to the moon to investigate, where they encounter a sinister alien power determined to invade the Earth... Campy film has two appealing performances by Koenig and Campbell, but an unoriginal story that fizzles out by the simplistic climax. Not bad really, though the music score is unmemorable, and plot reminiscent of the film "Lifeforce".

What we have here is a film without the budget, and enough talent within the cast and crew, to make its ambitious premise work. Even though Moontrap is a silly and ultimately forgettable film, it does have a handful of unique elements. Chief among them is the fact that most Sci-Fi films take place in the future - whereas this one sets it's scene in 1969 - twenty years BEFORE the film was made! Furthermore, the film takes place mostly on the moon, which even though it's the closest celestial body to Earth, doesn't often feature too much in films. But other than that, this is a cheesy throwaway movie with more bad ideas than good ones. The plot follows a mission to the space surrounding the moon, where two veteran pilots stumble upon an alien spaceship. One of them goes to investigate, and ends up bringing back something that looks like a rugby ball, and a decaying human corpse. It turns out that the rugby ball is some kind of robot alien and it soon grows in size and uses some of the corpse in its own body. After that, the pair returns to the moon...Of course, my main reason for seeing this film was because of the fact that Bruce Campbell is in it; I wouldn't even have considered it otherwise. Campbell proved in Evil Dead II that he is capable of an amazingly entertaining and truly over the top performance; but unfortunately, director Robert Dyke has seen fit to have Bruce in a role that is more reminiscent of his subdued part in Maniac Cop. Also, Campbell isn't the lead actor - and that accolade falls to Walter Koenig. The problem with both of these performances is not that they're not bad - just that they're not very good, and the pair has absolutely zero chemistry. Of course, you can't expect great acting from a B-movie, but one thing you can expect is fun and this movie doesn't have much of that either. The special effects are amazingly crappy, even for a film like this, as the models used look really poor. The locations are no better, as you'd have to be a complete moron to even slightly believe the scenes set on the moon. But even so, there are a lot worse films than this out there (many featuring a big budget and coming from Hollywood), and despite its many, many flaws; fans of trash cinema may get a kick out of this trash.

What the heck was that! To quote from a few other reviews:"the cinematography is good" Do what!? maybe it was the awful copy I saw but the camera work was shaky to say the least. "I really thought the special effects were outstanding" You must have seen a different film to me. When the orbiter is attacked you could almost picture the string being cut on the model!Leigh Lombardi gets naked"strangely humorous", yes I smiled openly at how far fetched things got.Leigh Lombardi gets her kit off"You just can't help but watch all of "Moontrap"." Must agree wholeheartedly here, I carried on watching in case it got better - it didn't!Leigh Lombardi disrobed"Cheesy", Yes, you got that right, it's cheesier than a cheesy thing made out of 100% solid Cheddar!Leigh Lombardi in the buffwhat a waste of 92 minutes of my life - still, I put the laundry on and sorted my socks so my time wasn't entirely wasted.By the way, did I mention - Leigh Lombardi? Hence 2* and not 1*