Monday, September 21, 2009

Movie #132 - Spaceballs


"May The Farce Be With You."

You have to hand it to Mel Brooks. He took one of the biggest franchises in movie history in Star Wars and made one of the most clever spoof comedies. Not only was Brooks able to accomplish such a feat, but he used a large movie production budget and was very respectful to the Star Wars franchise in the jokes that were told.

This is definitely how movie spoofs should be made. The Airplane franchise is another set of movies that does it right. More recently, the disastrous movies such as the ones made by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are horrible. Poor examples of super spoofs in which every movie of the summer is made into a spoof segment of the film. Stay away from these films.

Mel Brooks did it right with this film. The cast is remarkable in the use of top actors of the 80's such as John Candy, Rick Moranis, and Bill Pullman. Also, the other cast members are pretty good too such as Daphne Zuniga, Dick Van Patten, and Joan Rivers. Mel Brooks is also in this film along with some clever cameos from John Hurt and George Wyner.

Of the Brooks films, this is one of his best. I appreciate his brand of humor, because its creative and unique. He utilizes a basis for his plot, but takes the film into a whole new direction, telling an entirely different story that is only loosely based on the original film.

For you Star Wars fans out there... you'll love the use of various references from the franchise such as the Schwarz instead of the Force, Yogurt instead of Yoda, Dark Helmet instead of Darth Vader, and Pizza the Hut instead of Jabba the Hutt. Overall, Star Wars fans should enjoy this movie, not only for its farce comedy, but for the efforts made to pay homage to the original franchise.