THE ICE PIRATES (1984)

THE ICE PIRATES (1984)

Tagline: See A Totally Spaced Adventure!

(Action, Adventure, That’s Some Quality H2O) [PG]

Even their robots are insolent.

In this one, we are taken to the distant future where water is basically running out and space pirates looking for ice to steal is a real issue. Jason and his cohort Roscoe are captured and sold to a princess who is trying to find her father. It is believed that her father is aware of a planet that has plenty of water, but the rulers of the day do not want it found. 

First off, back when I was 11 this movie came out, and given the preview, I really wanted to check it out. STAR WARS was huge and everyone and their brother was trying to start the next big space franchise. We had everything from BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS to SPACE RAIDERS to STAR CRASH etc. Naturally, I gravitated to this thing like it was the last Optimus Prime on the shelf. Then I saw it, and sadly I remember it sucking. 

So – just to give it another chance I recently watched it again. It sucked again. Sometimes making what was supposed to be a big-budget sci-fi film works out at a lower budget. Roger Corman was a genius at that. However, this thing they tried to re-package as a comedy, and none of it is funny. There isn’t even a single funny line in the entire script. 

I will start out with the stuff I actually liked. We do get some cool robot designs in this thing and some of the ship designs and MAD-MAX style vehicles are cool. It’s also cool that John Matuszak was in this. If you don’t recognize the name right off the bat, John eventually went on to play “Sloth” in THE GOONIES. He was also in ONE CRAZY SUMMER. Mary Crosby who plays Princess Karina is a good lead actress as was Robert Urich her counterpart. Urich is probably best known for the TV show “Spenser For Hire”. 

On the bad side is pretty much everything else. This movie managed to take good actors and put them in crappy positions. Ron Perlman plays Zeno and he sucks. Normally when I see Ron Perlman is in a movie, I run to that thing. Anjelica Huston plays a pirate lady Maida and sucks. The same goes for Michael D. Roberts playing Roscoe. They all suck. Kind of like me when I am trying to fill out paperwork for a dentist appointment. I SUCK at that. Again, all these people are talented, they were just given a horrible horrible unenjoyable heap of garbage for a script. As a writer, Stewart Raffill is actually pretty hit and miss. His misses include MAC AND ME and this movie, and among his hits are PASSENGER 57 and… wait a minute. Nope…that might be it. 

The comedy is sub-par to non-existent, there are bizarre scenes involving space herpes and slapstick fight scenes that just make zero sense. I wanted to love this thing like I said, but in spite of that cool poster, run…while you still can. ICE PIRATES is not worth your time. 

For me this is a 2 out of 7 and that hurts the nostalgia part of me that wished this thing had rocked like so many other great movies of the ’80s. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER (MGM) AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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