SPACE TRUCKERS (1996)

SPACE TRUCKERS (1996)

Tagline:  They've shipped everything from square pigs to anti-gravity beer... But now they've got a load of real trouble.

(Adventure, Comedy, SciFi) [PG-13]

Did you hear something back there that sounds like there's something back there?

In this one, John Canyon is a space trucker who has a pretty slow ship. Because his profession is fading he is often asked to ship strange cargo, often without knowing anything about what it is. In this case, he’s carrying a bunch of freakin killer robots to earth.  

This movie starts out pretty interestingly and even awesome. The fact that the main character John Canyon (played by Dennis Hopper) is hauling “square pigs” is pretty epic. We get several clever and cool ideas introduced. Canyon's co-pilot Cindy (played by Debbie Mazar most famous for EMPIRE RECORDS) agrees to marry him if he can get her to earth safe with their next bit of cargo. While in a diner that looks like it’s straight out of SPACEBALLS, Cindy and John run into a maverick space trucker named Mike Pucci (played by Stephen Dorff probably most famous for being in IMMORTALS). After a scuffle at the diner, the main plot of the story starts to form, and sadly it’s mostly garbage. 

For B-movie fans, this might be a classic of sorts but in spite of some okay acting on the part of most everyone, the way the plot unfolds is tedious and often hard to watch. Some of the plot involves a bizarre reason to keep Cindy in a bra for 75% of the movie's run time. Which I guess is totally fine if you really like her. It also introduces what is basically a robot attempted rape scene and just overall weird stuff like that. Charles Dance (from GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS) plays a sinister mastermind but I would be willing to bet Dance would like to forget this movie ever happened. 

Effects-wise this thing is okay in some parts but feels pretty cheap with whole sections looking like they were filmed at a junkyard or something. The design of the killer robots is cool and we do get some cool ship designs, but in a movie called SPACE TRUCKERS, you kind of expect to see more than 1 actual space truck. I did like the design of the cab itself, but the trailer for the space truck looked bizarre. 

I will say the previews for this thing got my attention. I am always looking for diamonds in the rough so to speak that I might have missed when it came out. Clearly, not many people get to see everything that gets produced so I do a lot of catch-up. Unfortunately, the idea behind this movie was far more interesting and fun than the movie itself. I wanted to like this thing, but I really didn’t find it funny or entertaining for too much of its run time to recommend it. This is coming from a dude who loves crazy b-movies, but this one is just rough as hell. 

I give SPACE TRUCKERS a 2 out of 7. If a few parts were taken out and slight tweaks were made, this thing could have been as good as a 5.

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