Oh the hilarity! Oh the joy! Another film that is so bad it's good! Or, so I thought. In actual fact, this one misses the "so bad its good" phase and goes, sadly, straight to the "could have been so bad its good, but they screwed it up and made it plain bad".

For a start its way too long. Cut half an hour and it might have been more endurable. Then put in such ludicrous plots as "the man who is sabotaging the mission to save the Earth, because he has all the food stockpiled and he'll be rich if the mission fails!". Duh!. Or the "talking bomb" plot device last seen in Dark Star. Guess what....just like in Dark Star, the bomb has a malfunction.....hmmmm. Add in a dash of "we can't act our way out of a kindergarten play" and you have Solar Crisis in a nutshell.

Light relief is to be had in the form of Jack Palance (or Jack Pants, as we called him in this flick), whose sole purpose in the film is to drive a kid around the desert and telephone the kid's dad to come pick him up....eventually. Between driving and phoning, Jack dispenses pointless drivel and leers and cackles a lot, but contributes little to the story, such as it is. In short, he's the best bit of the movie.

My award for "The Most Ironic Line Delivered Straight-Faced" goes to Charlton Heston, who, when meeting his eldest son for the first time in ages, comments that his son looks a little "out of shape" whilst he himself is standing there with his gut bulging over his waistband and in dire need of a Captain Kirk Corset.

Also amusing is the bad guy's top henchman, who has a bright white hairstyle that kept making me think of Andy Warhol, for some reason.

Apart from these hilarities, there's little to recommend this movie. The ending is a sequence copied from (but mercifully shorter than) the end sequence from 2001.

Tips for enjoying this movie more, if you are foolish enough to watch it, like I did:

1. Any time the bomb speaks, imagine it's called Tarquin (Trust me, it works!)

2. Whenever Chuck Heston is on screen and about to speak, pre-empt him by reciting a line from Planet of the Apes such as "Get your filthy paws off me!" or similar.

3. Whenever the female lead is looking stressed (this is most of the time) keep hoping against hope that she's having an aneurism and will die soon.

4. During the interminable "the ship's broke again" scenes, keep hoping the tech/engineer guys will spout a Scotty-ism like "You cannae change the laws of physics!" or some such crap.

Other than that, do what it takes to get you through this one. I dozed off half way through and woke to realise I hadn't missed anything, nor had the plot (laughable though it is) advanced any. So don't worry about tuning out for a few, you won't miss anything.

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