From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu May 2 17:34:39 1996
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From: berardin@bc.cybernex.net (James Berardinelli)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE (1996)
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MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1996 James Berardinelli
RATING (0 TO 10): 6.0
Alternative Scale: **1/2 out of ****
United States, 1996
U.S. Release Date: 4/19/96 (wide)
Running Length: 1:13
MPAA Classification: PG-13 (Language)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Cast: Michael J. Nelson, Trace Beaulieu, Kevin Murphy, Jim Mallon
Director: Jim Mallon
Producer: Jim Mallon
Screenplay: Michael J. Nelson, Trace Beaulieu, Jim Mallon, Kevin Murphy,
Mary Jo Pehl, Paul Chaplin, Bridget Jones
Cinematography: Jeff Stonehouse
U.S. Distributor: Gramercy Pictures
I guess there are some concepts that don't excel in the translation
from the small screen to the big one, and MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000
appears to be among these. The TV series, which started on a
Minneapolis UHF channel in 1988 before moving to HBO's Comedy Channel in
1989, provides light, undemanding entertainment for those who enjoy
lampooning (or, perhaps more appropriately, harpooning) bad movies.
This new motion picture incarnation, which boasts larger sets but
essentially the same format, is on par with one of the lesser episodes.
As a TV diversion, MST3K is thoroughly enjoyable, but, in this new
medium, it's something of a disappointment.
For those unfamiliar with the MST3K premise, it goes something like
this: a dastardly mad scientist, Dr. Forrester (Trace Beaulieu), has
decided to conquer the world by subjecting the entire population to bad
movies. On an Earth-orbiting space station called the Satellite of
Love, Forrester tries out his plan on a hapless human guinea pig, Mike
Nelson, and two robots, Tom Servo (voice of Kevin Murphy) and Crow T.
Robot (voice of Trace Beaulieu). Instead of being tortured into
submission, however, these three actually seem to enjoy the experience.
Episode-after-episode, they sit in the audience and mock whatever
"cinematic suppository" Forrester exhibits. As viewers, we see a movie
screen showing the picture of choice with a row of seats and three
moving heads silhouetted against it.
For MST3K: THE MOVIE, the film-to-be-savaged is THIS ISLAND EARTH,
a 1954 science fiction embarrassment that could hold its own against any
other entries in the worst movie of all time competition. Featuring the
obscure cast of Jeff Morrow, Rex Reason, and Faith Domergue, the
chaotic, idiotic plot involves a trip by two Earth scientists to the
planet Metulana (which, in the words of one of the MST3K trio, looks
like "THE JETSONS after Armageddon"). Once there, the Earth man and
woman learn of an intended invasion of their homeworld, avoid becoming
the victims of a giant mutant insectoid, and join a helpful Metulana
native in escaping from the dying, bombed-out world.
A significant problem with using a movie this deliciously bad is
that the film generates enough unintentional humor on its own, so it
doesn't really need the quips and barbs from Servo, Mike, and Crow.
Although a number of their comments are very funny, THIS ISLAND EARTH
would have had me doubled over with laughter had I seen it without the
MST3K format. Unfortunately, during the course of this film, there are
several contrived breaks that get the characters out of the darkened
theater. During these sequences, without a cheesy flick to inspire
them, their banter comes across as juvenile. Such unnecessary and
pointless padding dilutes the movie's better aspects.
Die-hard fans will undoubtedly be delighted, but it's more
difficult to determine how casual viewers will react, especially if they
realize that they're paying for something that's no better than what's
available on TV. In fact, the theatrical environment may stifle MST3K,
unless you happen to see it in a ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW setting. By
its nature, MST3K demands audience participation -- something difficult
to obtain in a typical movie-watching environment.
In general, it's easy to praise the ingenuity of the MST3K writers,
although less for this script than for some of what they have previously
accomplished. Motion pictures, no matter what they celebrate or deride,
should be something of an event (after all, you have to travel to get to
the theater, then dole out money once you arrive). In this case,
however, MST3K: THE MOVIE is routine -- sporadically funny, occasionally
clever, but routine nonetheless.
- James Berardinelli
e-mail: berardin@bc.cybernex.net
web: http://www.cybernex.net/~berardin
From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu May 2 17:34:46 1996
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From: rhodes_steve@tandem.com (Steve Rhodes)
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Subject: REVIEW: MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE (1996)
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MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1996 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
What is the worst thing that can happen to you in a movie theater?
Sitting next to a group of people who not only talk incessantly back to
the screen, but who say nothing but inanities and bathroom humor.
Well, welcome to your worst nightmare, MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000:
THE MOVIE.
The movie is based on the increasing unpopular and soon to be
discontinued "Mystery Science Theater 3000" TV series on the Comedy
Channel. MST3K's format is they take an old science fiction movie and
make fun of it with non-stop jabbering. The setup is that there is a
mad scientist, Dr. Forrester (Trace Beaulieu), who has Mike Nelson
(Michael J. Nelson) and two robots, Tom Servo (voice by Kevin Murphy)
and Crow T. Robot (voice by Trace Beaulieu), trapped inside a space
station called Satellite of Love. They are forced to watch old sci-fi
movies, but end up enjoying them. Mike and his two mechanical buddies
are shown silhouetted in the bottom of the screen talking back to the
movie which occupies the rest of the screen.
In MST3K there are also scenes without benefit of the old movie.
The laughs here are rare. The only piece of dialog I like is when Crow
tells the others, "I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus
doing something very stupid, and I decided to go ahead." Sort of like
what producer Jim Mallon did when he decided to make a feature length
movie of something people had tired of seeing on television.
The picture Mike and company are forced to watch is THIS ISLAND
EARTH (1954) with Jeff Morrow as the alien Exeter, Faith Domergue as
Dr. Ruth Adams, and Rex Reason as Dr. Cal Meacham. I have never seen
THIS ISLAND EARTH before and the best part of MST3K is getting to see
it. The worst part is the non-stop rambling by Mike and the robots.
I guess I must confess my prejudices. I watch little television,
and when I have channel surfed past this show in the past on TV, I have
not been impressed. The concept is fine, but the implementation,
thanks to director Jim Mallon and writers Michael J. Nelson, Trace
Beaulieu, Jim Mallon, Kevin Murphy , Mary Jo Pehl, Paul Chaplin, and
Bridget Jones is fatally flawed. If you run out of ideas for dialog,
admit it and cut back to only the material worth filming. Moreover,
the characters do not have to suffer from diarrhea of the mouth. Let
the old film speak for itself most of the time, and then a few jabs
will prove much funnier.
I can not print MST3K's bathroom humor in this G rated review, but
think of the type of tasteless commentary that a 9 year old might come
up with as vulgar humor, and you get the idea. In the printable, but
typically bad dialog, we have exchanges like that when Dr. Meacham
flies into Exeter's hideout in the country. Crow proclaims, "He's
flown into a Flemish painting," and Servo tries to one-up him with, "I
claim this land for Spain." This is supposed to be funny?
There were a few members of the audience who laughed frequently,
but most were like me and just stared at the screen. There are a
couple of funny parts. One is when Dr. Adams and Dr. Meacham try to
escape from Exeter. Stealthy they are not, and as Crow puts it, "Let's
slip away in the dark of the afternoon in the biggest car in the
county." The other occurs during the credits when Mike and his robot
sidekicks hang around to poke fun at everything from people's names to
their titles. If you think about it, some of the titles people get in
movie credits are pretty esoteric. Perhaps because they were not
interrupting a better movie, I liked most of their jokes during the
credits.
If they had taken THIS ISLAND EARTH and perhaps some other films
in this 50s sci-fi genre, they would have had the core of a fascinating
documentary which would have been much better than MST3K.
Alternatively, if they felt they had to stay with this contrived
format, the writers should have drastically limited how often Mike and
the robots should speak. As it is, I was constantly wanting to scream
at them, "shut up!"
MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE runs a mercifully short
1:14. It is correctly rated PG-13 for bad language and gross humor.
There is no sex, nudity or violence. Given the setup of the film,
there is no reason why they did not make a G or at most a PG show. The
crudeness of the script detracted dramatically from the quality of the
movie. Done right this should have been a show fine for my seven year
old. Thank goodness, I did not bring him. I do suspect the film will
be okay for most kids over 9 or 10 since by then they are all too
familiar with crude humor. I do not recommend the film, although loyal
fans of the show will probably enjoy it. I give it * 1/2 solely
because I did enjoy seeing parts of THIS ISLAND EARTH.
______________________________________________________________________
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film.
*** = Excellent show. Look for it.
** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable.
* = Poor show. Don't waste your money.
0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: April 23, 1996
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon May 20 17:43:11 1996
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From: legeros@nando.net (Michael J. Legeros)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE (1996)
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MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1996 Michael John Legeros
(Gramercy)
Directed by Jim Mallon
Written by Michael J. Nelson, Trace Beaulieu, Jim Mallon, Kevin
Murphy, Mary Jo Pehl, Paul Chaplin, Bridget Jones
MPAA Rating "PG-13"
Running Time 74 minutes
Reviewed at The Colony, Raleigh, NC (8MAY96)
==
Mike Nelson, Tom Servo, and Craig T. Robot bring their cable-TV
shtick to the big screen in MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE,
though with a substantially less-awful target to take aim at. The
three, who sit silhouetted at the bottom of the frame, wisecrack their
way through the cheesy 1955 classic THIS ISLAND EARTH. From sitcoms to
"Star Trek" to DR. STRANGELOVE, their comments come from every corner of
the pop-culture spectrum. More gags fail than fly, sure, but they all
contribute to an atmosphere of mirth and merriment that lasts the
duration of the film. You'll laugh; you'll howl. (Unfortunately, the
other sequences-- those set in the dog bone-shaped space station, where
the characters live, breathe, and watch movies-- are cheap-looking and
largely unfunny.) The best part of MST3K: THE MOVIE is that the humor
lacks either a mean-spirited or condescending edge. The writers don't
attempt to outsmart the viewer; instead, they invite us to laugh along
with them. They know, as we do, that bad movies are best heckled at.
Grade: B
--
Mike Legeros - Raleigh, NC
legeros@nando.net (h) - legeros@unx.sas.com (w)
Visit me in MOVIE HELL
From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed May 22 17:44:50 1996
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From: simpson@stsci.edu (Bart)
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Subject: REVIEW: MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE (1996)
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MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE
A film review by Bart
Copyright 1996 Bart
Starring: Michael J. Nelson, Trace Beaulieu, Kevin Murphy
Director: Jim Mallon
Rating: PG-13
Score: 8.5/10
It was a rainy Friday afternoon in Columbus when I persuaded a friend
to see a matinee performance of MST3K:TM. He had never seen any
episodes of the show, and I have watched a scant few, due to its
unsocial airtime on Comedy Central and the uneven nature of many of
the episodes.
For those of you not familiar with the premise, Dr Clayton Forrester
(Beaulieu) wishes to take over the world by finding the worst film
ever made and unleashing it upon an unsuspecting public. To achieve
this, he (in the words of the TV series' theme, which is missing in
the movie) "bumped [Mike Nelson (Nelson)] on the noggin and then shot
him into space", and is monitoring Nelson's reactions to the movies he
is forced to endure. Rather than succumb to the sheer awfulness of many
of the movies, Nelson spends his time making wisecracks with the help
of his two robot companions, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot. The format of
the show consists of Nelson, Servo and Crow making their comments
while silhouetted against the movie being watched, and breaks every 20
minutes or so for segments set on the Satellite of Love, the ship on
which our heroes are marooned.
Only two things are different in the movie: the absence of Forrester's
sidekick, TV's Frank, and the slower pace of the jokes. This latter
change is presumably deliberate to avoid the viewing audience missing
some of the best lines while laughing from the previous joke. For
their big screen outing, the producers have chosen "This Island
Earth", a 1954 classic, and one of the first SF films to have a
special effects budget larger than the average grocery bill.
Unfortunately for that film (but making it ideal MST3K fodder), acting
and dialogue appear to have taken a back seat to the effects which, by
today's standards, are less than impressive. Nelson & Co. make jokes
about everything from Japan's dominance in the world market, to Star
Trek, to the state of disrepair of Seattle's Kingdome, and most of
them work. Unfortunately, the segments set outside the satellite's
movie theater seem out of place and aren't particularly funny, but at
least they're fairly short.
The big question about this movie though is: Why? I presume it was an
attempt to gain a larger following to keep support behind the series
(rumours of its impending demise circulated for some time before the
plug was eventually pulled a few months ago), but the format gains
nothing from its transition to the big screen -- there are no special
effects to dazzle you, no action sequences to keep you on the edge of
your seat, and no use of digital surround sound. So, it seems
pointless to spend $8 per person to see this movie when in a few
months it will be out on video and you can watch it for $3, and not
have to sit in a room full of popcorn addicts.
Nevertheless, MST3K:TM provides more laugh-out-loud opportunities than
any film you're going to see this year, and I thoroughly recommend it
to anyone with a pulse. Given its uniqueness, I hesitate to grade it
against other films, but it fulfils its claims and so in the class of
"unsubtle comedy films whose laughs come at the expense of bad
B-movies" it does well.
From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Mar 25 15:43:58 1997
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From: chuckd21@southeast.net (Chuck Dowling)
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Subject: REVIEW: MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE (1996)
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MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1997 Chuck Dowling
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996) **** out of ***** - Cast:
Michael J. Nelson, Trace Beaulieu, Kevin Murphy, Jim Mallon. Directed By:
Jim Mallon. Running Time: 73 minutes.
Big screen version of the cult favorite TV series from Comedy Central. If
you are unfamiliar with the show, here's the basic premise: Mike Nelson and
his robot friends are trapped in space and forced to watch really bad
movies. To make the film more tolerable, they talk throughout the film,
making lots of jokes and obscure references to a number of different things.
For the big motion picture version they are forced to watch "This Island
Earth", a horrible 50s sci-fi flick (which surprisingly many film guides
rate highly). There are only minor differences between this film and the
series: it is funnier than most episodes, it runs a little shorter, the
segments in between the watching of the film aren't done as well as on the
show, and it is rated PG-13, which allows for a little use of language,
but nothing too shocking I assure you. And be sure to stay tuned through
the final credits.
For some ridiculous and completely stupid reason, Comedy Central cancelled
the TV show right before the film's release. Comedy Central is now minus one
quality show. The show has been picked up, however, by The Sci-Fi
Network. The Sci-Fi network is run by some very bright individuals.
--
Chuck Dowling
Visit Chuck's Movie Reviews at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/
Over 1,600 movies rated and/or reviewed! Movie news, film related
links, and reader's reviews.
From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Jan 30 16:28:08 1998
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From: E. Benjamin Kelsey
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Subject: Retrospective: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie
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MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE
(PG-13)
Directed by Jim Mallon
Running Time: 73 minutes
Originally Released: April 19, 1996
Reviewed by E. Benjamin Kelsey
* * * (out of four)
The premise is simple, if not bizarre. A mad scientist (Trace Beaulieu as Dr.
Clayton Forrester) launches an average-joe (Michael J. Nelson as Mike Nelson)
into space where he forces his subject to watch the most horrendous movies
ever made. Why? It's torturous, it's maniacal, and it's just plain fun. Based
on the cult-favorite cable television series, MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000:
THE MOVIE isn't torturous, but as for being maniacal and just plain fun, it
foots the bill quite nicely.
Mike Nelson, on a dog-bone shaped spacecraft, spends his days as any young man
would dream - indulging in sarcasm and horseplay, and seeing quite a few
movies. The catch is, these movies aren't the movies he chooses, but retched
examples of film-making chosen specifically by Dr. Forrester in an attempt to
break Mike's will to live. Dr. Forrester is convinced that one too many b-
movies is all it will take to ruin a man, but with a couple of wise-cracking
puppet buddies (Tom Servo, voiced by Kevin Murphy, and Crow T. Robot, voiced
by Beaulieu), the torture becomes somewhat of a honorary party for all that is
wrong in the world of cheezy cinema.
The purpose behind MST3K is to exploit some of the worst films known (even if
by very few of us) to man. We watch as the silhouettes of Mike, Tom, and Crow
sit in a darkened theater poking fun at the movie going on before them. In
this case, it's the 1954 sci-fi film THIS ISLAND EARTH. We basically watch as
our three leads watch, only we get the pleasure of eavesdropping on their
hilarious commentary. The plots behind the movies ripped apart are really
quite irrelevant, but for the sake of those who might want to know, I'll
explain this one. THIS ISLAND EARTH is the tale of two scientists, a man and a
woman, who wind up aboard a spaceship whose crew intends to destroy the Earth.
Together the two fight to survive as well as save their home planet.
To make MST3K work, the film-within-the-film naturally has to be as horrible
as possible, and although the TV-series introduced us to several worse films
than THIS ISLAND EARTH, it's a bad enough flick to bring about some hysterical
cruelty. MST3K, which doesn't actually contain the complete THIS ISLAND EARTH,
is a short 73 minutes, but this is a step very wisely taken. As funny as some
of their observations are, it can only go so long. Occasional breaks from THIS
ISLAND EARTH also help the film tremendously. Although it takes a second to
get back into the right mode after this premise has been left for a moment,
it's better than overkilling the whole concept post haste.
MST3K lovers will likely hail the film greatly, but if you don't know what
you're in for, it could be a jarring disappointment. Although I thought the
sharp wit of this film was worth three stars, it is a movie to be seen on home
video, late at night when your brain is not functioning to full capacity
anyway, and with a large, saracastic crowd - New Year's at midnight for
example, which is when I saw it.
Warning: Although MST3K has more to its end credits than most (the three leads
use the credits to poke some more fun), they are actually more annoying than
most. The name slandering and asinine one-liners were extremely unfunny, and
after laughing for about 70 minutes straight, it put a heavy damper on the
overall experience. Most people will likely stay to see what the smart-alec's
have to say, but for me, it almost ruined an otherwise good film.
January 01, 1998