SPACEHUNTER : ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE (1983)

SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE (1983)

Tagline: Blast off for a high-powered adventure.

(Action, Adventure, Molly Ringwald Being Annoying) [PG]

Us loners got to stick together.

So because of the success of STAR WARS in the early 80’s a lot of studios were trying to see if they could duplicate that movies success. All of them failed. Here however is one that took a bit of a different take on space adventure by all but eliminating the space with the exception of maybe 5 minutes out of the entire film. In fact if you ended up coming into this movie a bit late, you would have probably thought you were watching an installment in the MAD MAX series.

In this one 3 random women crash land on a planet infested with disease after their main ship is blown up. That is pretty much all you need to know because Wolff (played by Peter Strauss who has had a long career, but the coolest things he’s done in my eyes is voice overs for BIKER MICE FROM MARS) is coming, and he’s gonna rescue these women right freaking now. Well, right now after he gives Niki (played by Molly Ringwald) a bath in some random hot-springs they travel by. Yeah, he doesn’t like it at first but this random girl wandering around in the desert is his partner now. Niki and Wolff run into one of the GHOSTBUSTERS (Ernie Hudson who plays “Washington”) and the 3 of them end up trying to save the day. To do that however, they are going up against Overdog (probably the creepiest role Michael Ironside has ever played, and his list of playing creepy dudes is long), he’s like a space vampire or something, I don’t know.

Just about everything about this movie outside of the action sequences and a few bits of acting is pretty rough. Peter does a great job as Wolff, but this had to be the most annoying role Molly Ringwald has ever been asked to play because she is just not the same in this and it’s on purpose. The sets are pretty much like if you show up and a junkyard and started shooting, but the action in this is choreographed very well.

Shockingly I highly recommend watching this thing at least once. I found it highly entertaining and complete with just enough fun to make something I’d buy if I spotted it on DVD as some point. Unlike a lot of other shots at trying to be STAR WARS this one kept it’s plot simple rather than trying to overload it’s audience with a super convoluted non-sense plot.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF COLUMBIA PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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