The Ice Pirates (1984)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

I truly believe this is a great movie. I remember the love scene under the oh-so-precious water shower. I remember a gonzo, well-intentioned feel. And a nice plot idea. I may be disappointed when I see it again. But I believe I'll be wrong, then.

There is so much wrong with this film, make 3 years before "Space Balls". Angelica Huston probably wanted to buy up and burn all the copies! Water not oxygen is such a scarce commodity and "The Templars" have a virtual monopoly on it. The Ice Pirates are a rag-tag band of water thieves. There are the usual cliché cast members including a beautiful princess (Mary Crosby) plus a quest for the 7th planet where water exists in great abundance. Much potty humor. A "castration machine" to turn prisoners into mindless slaves. Reused sets including a recycled matte from "Logan's Run". A bodyless being with Amazonian guards. A silly space herpes monster. Robots that act like The 3 Stooges. A beheading in the Alien Pirate Bar. Minor racist comments. A cheaply-made "Mad Max" desert car chase. Simulated (just lots of moaning) sex. The cheap costumes: pirates, King Arthur chainmail, Vikings, black leather. This started out as a serious film and lost its way. Fairly decent spaceship special effects but shoddy Atari displays. A great cast totally wasted. The time travel climax is very confusing but cleverly done. All the men grow long white beards like Moses. The Space Pirates fight the Templars "to the death" with swords and lasers. The hero's baby boy grows up before our eyes and saves-the-day. Then everything returns back to normal? It's tasteless yet occasionally funny, in spite of itself! After all the new "Star Wars" films of late, we need another space spoof. The working title: "Darth Vader Go Home!"

"The Ice Pirates" is a pretty engaging off kilter comedy spoofing both space adventures and swashbucklers, with enough verbal and visual gags to make it pleasant, and impossible to truly dislike. It's clearly not aiming to be something particularly memorable or special, just an irreverent diversion on lazy afternoons. It's played enthusiastically by an interestingly chosen cast that helps it to have a cult-film sort of appeal. The script, co-written by director Stewart Raffill ("The Philadelphia Experiment", "Mac and Me"), has a muddled story but a disarming sense of humour. Not all of its scenes work that well, but it's sure to have its viewers smiling if not laughing out loud.TV stars Robert Urich ('Vega$') and Mary Crosby ('Dallas') headline a cast also featuring Michael D. Roberts, Ron Perlman, Anjelica Huston, John Matuszak, Bruce Vilanch, and a too briefly seen John Carradine. Urich plays Jason, the leader of the title characters in a galaxy where water is the most precious commodity. After their latest escapades, they're captured by the baddies - dubbed Templars - and then acquired by princess Karina (Crosby) so they can help in a quest to find her father.Reasonably good visuals and a decent score by Bruce Broughton help in the enjoyment of this little bit of escapism, as well as a fairly clever finale taking place inside a time warp where our heroes steadily age while fighting the bad guys. There are also a variety of interesting and likable characters, human, robot, and otherwise, with actors and actresses such as Natalie Core, Jeremy West, Alan Caillou, Marcia Lewis, Robert Symonds, Rockne Tarkington, Ian Abercrombie, Hank Worden, and Carmen Filpi in various small roles. Perlman is particularly funny as one of Jasons' comrades, while Huston gets to be a total badass.This would make a decent double feature with another off the wall cult genre effort from the same year, "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension".Six out of 10.

After missing out on this innumerable times on TCM UK, I decided to check it out given its sci-fi/adventure/camp pedigree: I knew I’d be in for a thoroughly silly ride – but it was also astoundingly bad! Anyway, perhaps appropriately given the characters involved, the script rips off many sci-fi titles then of recent vintage – SOYLENT GREEN (1973), ZARDOZ (1974), LOGAN’S RUN (1976; to the extent that it was filmed on some of the self-same sets!), STAR WARS (1977), ALIEN (1979) and MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981)! The plot is simple but not exactly engaging: from the title one can deduce that water has become scarce on the planet where all of this takes place – so our ragtag buccaneer heroes take it upon themselves to steal ice blocks from the tyrannical Templar(!) rulers. Also involved is a beautiful princess (Mary Crosby, daughter of Bing!) in search of her father, the deposed king; by the way, the cast includes another famous offspring: Anjelica Huston (daughter of John) as one of the pirate band – thankfully, the actress’ mistake in accepting such a role would soon be forgotten in the wake of her winning an Oscar (under her father’s guidance, no less) for PRIZZI’S HONOR (1985). Since STAR WARS had Peter Cushing as the “Supreme Commander”, the film-makers opted to have a screen legend of their own – 78-year old John Carradine (who’s seen strapped to a sort of operating table during his one brief scene!).The most notable bits (for all the wrong reasons) are: the alien using the toilet; the castration machine; the clumsy antics (including karate-style combat!) of the inevitable robot companions; the goofy slave/eunuch make-up worn at one point by the heroes; the recurring attacks by the “space herpies” (whatever that is); the climax in which the characters are made to age when going through a time-warp (Crosby becomes pregnant, gives birth, and sees her son grow up in the space of 30 seconds, while leading man Robert Urich himself is replaced by John Ford stalwart Hank Worden for this scene!) – incidentally, the jump-cuts adopted here (intending to denote the rapid passage of time) are not only unsuccessful but downright irritating.