Spaceballs (1987)

 

Off-List: Spaceballs

The second off-List movie for 1987 (and the first review of 2026) is “Spaceballs”. This is in my humble opinion one of the best spoof-movies ever made, up there with “Airplane!” and “Naked Gun” and perhaps the funniest movie to come from Mel Brooks. Yes, it is silly and the story makes little to no sense, but I laugh myself silly every time I watch it. It also happens to be one of my son’s favourite movies.

In a galaxy very, very, very, very, very far away an evil and ridiculous empire called Spaceballs, run but Spaceballs out of Spaceball city wants to steal the atmosphere of neighbouring, peaceful and somewhat medieval looking Druidia after have “foolishly squandered away” their own. To this end the Spaceballs want to kidnap Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) to get the access code to the shield protecting the atmosphere. The Spaceball team is lead by President Skroob (Mel Brooks himself), Colonel Sandurz (George Wyner) and the awesome Rick Moranis as Lord Dark Helmet.

Princess Vespa escapes from her own wedding and is almost caught by the Spaceballs when she is saved by Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and his sidekick Barf (John Candy), half dog, half human, in their Winnebago-turned-spaceship. Then goes the chase though a desert planet, a meet with the Yoda lookalike Yogurt (Mel Brooks again), a space prison and a final showdown on the Mega-maid.

If you have not guessed it already, this a spoof on “Star Wars”, and many of the best jokes are referencing that franchise. Not every joke works, but in the usual Mel Brooks style, there are so many of them and enough of them are great for this to be consistently fun. Rick Moranis, of whom I am a great fan, is the perfect anti-Darth Vader with his diminutive stature and oversize helmet. That man opens his mouth and I am laughing. It is not wrong to say that the best comedy in the movie is involving him. While many, it not all, his lines are quotable, you need his face and voice to really make it work.

In fact, “Spaceballs” is blessed with excellent comedic actors. This was an early part for Bill Pullman and although his part is to be heroic rather than funny, he does pull it off. John Candy is... John Candy. How can you not love him? And then of course, Mel Brooks appearing twice. One of the running jokes is that Brooks’ Yogurt is on a mission to merchandize the movie, a pun at the intensive merchandizing of “Star Wars” and throughout the movie we see Spaceball blankets, Spaceballs toilet paper, Spaceballs mugs etc.

Other movies of the genre are referenced as well such as “Planet of the Apes” and the “Star Trek” franchise. The best reference however is when Lone Starr and Barf see the crew from “Alien” at a space truck-stop. John Hurt reprises his scene with an alien coming out of his stomach after which the Xenomorph dons a little hat and a stick and gives a variety song before escaping to the kitchen. This one has me flat with laughter every time.

The spoof movie genre is more often a miss than a hit for me. Some time in the ninetieth I simply stopped watching thing, they were getting too stupid, but there was a time, from the mid-seventies to around 1990 where they often hit it right. I do not know if it was the quality of the jokes or the actors that made a difference, but my best guess is that they treated their viewers as adults (childish ones...) rather than 10-year-olds.

“Spaceballs”, along with “Naked Gun” and “Airplane!” are the ones I can always go back to. “Spaceballs” is the only one of the three not on the List and that is a miss.