THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996 TAG: 9605200206
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E9 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
THERE'S SOMETHING so deliciously mischievous about bad movies - particularly bad movies from another era.
The idea of talking back to movies like ``Rock Pretty Baby'' or ``Santa Claus Conquers the Martians'' is surely not something dreamed up by a rocket scientist. These movies, and hundreds of their ilk, are joys unto themselves.
One wonders, though, if we really need Mike Nelson and his robots, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, to help us have fun with these flicks. What they do is watch simply awful movies and make smarty-pants cracks between, and during, the dialogue. Woeful movie critics, in a valiant effort to stay sane, have been doing this for years.
The idea of using B-budget movies as the target for, uh, ``irreverence'' was dreamed up by a stand-up comedian and a production manager at a Minneapolis UHF station back in 1988. As ``Mystery Science Theater 3000,'' it began on what is now cable's Comedy Central in 1989.
The set-up: Dr. Clayton Forrestor, an evil scientist, plans to show the worst movies ever made until he drives everyone insane and takes over the world. (If you're a movie critic, the premise doesn't sound implausible at all). Dr. Forrestor (named for the scientist played by Gene Barry in ``The War of the Worlds'') uses regular-guy Mike Nelson, trapped on the Satellite of Love, as his guinea pig. But Mike, with his robot pals, fights back with humor. They make fun of the baddies.
There's no denying that some of the cracks were humorous on TV. But would you pay money to see them on the big screen?
The producers must have gone bananas over the fact that 2,200 ``MSTies'' showed up from 40 states for a convention in Minnesota in 1994. This, coupled with the fact that they claim there are 50,000 MST3K fan club members out there, must have prompted the investors to put up the money for a ``big-screen'' version. Never mind the fact that ``cult'' is often a word used for films that aren't popular enough to cross over into the mainstream.
``This Island Earth,'' a Universal Pictures' 1955 release, would not seem to be bad enough for an MST3K outing. In fact, in its day, it got quite good reviews (and is shown periodically, without cutie comments, on the American Movie Classics channel).
Mike and the robots, though, eventually convince us that it was pretty bad. It has Faith Domergue (a Howard Hughes discovery who never came up to Jane Russell's acting range) as a scientist who screams a lot. It has Rex Reason (at the same studio as Rock Hudson) as the hero and Jeff Morrow as the leader of aliens with big, knotty foreheads. The aliens are looking for uranium. Mike and the robots are looking for wisecracks.
I've never met anyone who has watched this format on TV who didn't think they could make funnier jokes than the three stars. (Obviously, the Peabody Award people thought differently when they gave their prestigious award to the show). In any case, five writers toiled to come up with the occasionally humorous, and sometimes hilarious, comments for the film.
The references, which are varied and often intelligent, are better than the lines themselves - as if the writers were fishing for an idea but got a nibble rather than a bite.
It would play better at midnight. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
MOVIE REVIEW
``Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie''
Cast: Trace Beaulieu, Michael J. Nelson, Jim Mallon
Director: Jim Mallow
MPAA rating: PG-13 (language)
Mal's rating: Two stars
Location: Naro in Norfolk
by CNB