THE FINAL FRONTIER - Part 2 - "Starcrash"
How the hell is it that I've not seen 1978's Starcrash? First and foremost I'm a huge science fiction geek with a almost obsessive love of cinematic Space Opera. Then there's the Caroline Munroe factor; I had a massive crush on her as a wee lad, ever since her skimpy role in At The Earth's Core. And now I've seen it I know why I avoided it. Yep, it's crap.
I'd hoped this low budget Star Wars rip off might have had a similar injection of behind the scenes talent as Roger Corman's exploitation rip-off Battle Beyond The Stars, but it was too much to hope for. There's no point in listing Starcrash's weaknesses for the whole film is flawed from top to bottom. But there are a few gems in the swamp of sci-fi cheese...
1/ What the hell is the excellent Christopher Plummer doing in this? Sure, the film benefits from his restrained gravitas, but he's waaaay too good for this.
2/ What the hell is Bond composer John Barry doing here? Sure the film benefits from his stately orchestrations, but he's way to good for this.
3/ Munroe. Mmmmmm. A terrible actress but her curvaceous, bikini clad heroine makes this the only reason to keep watching.
I had absolutely no idea what was going on, why Marjoe Gortner's chisel-jawed Jedi-ish hero Akton had powers, why The Hoff was in it at all or why the cavemen attacking The Hoff looked like they escaped from a Monty Python sketch. Utterly awful...but charming in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way.
1 comment:
Yeah, this film is terrible. But luckily Caroline Munro is her usual stunning 1970's self in it.
I too have always had a crush on this top British genre lady. We can't forget her as Naomi the sultry helicopter pilot in The Spy Who Loved Me. Her and Barbara Bach in that movie along with a Lotus Esprit submarine car and henchman Jaws made almost as big an impression on me as a kid as Star Wars did the same year.
Caroline was also a Hammer films regular and I proudly own a copy of Brian Clemens' one and only Hammer film Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter in which she has the sultry, sexy, scantilly clad female lead. The film's not bad either.
Three cheers for The Munro.
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