A sure-fire warning sign that the film you're watching might have some problems ahead is when it opens with a printed, scrolling history lesson on what's happened before -- especially if the film won't make a lick of sense without it. What's wrong with that you ask? Lots of good films start that way, you say. But. the one's I'm talking about have the even more ominous sign: When the film's producers assume you, the audience, are too stupid to read and have a narrator chime in to help you out and read it for you. Now, my old grandpa used to say "never trust a man who wears both suspenders and a belt at the same time". What does that have to do with this movie? I'm not sure. But you might cringe a little when you spool up The Ice Pirates and are greeted with a Lucas scroll and the redundant narrator tells us about the galactic wars that destroyed most of the known water in the galaxy. And with only one planet left that has this precious fluid, the evil Templars who control Mithra, and its water flow, have the rest of the universe under a very wet thumb. But this tyrannical monopoly brought about the formation of roving bands of space pirates, who ambush the Templar convoys and pillage their cargos of precious ice. Hence the title, and this is where our movie begins when a small pirate ship sneaks into a convoy of Templar ice-freighters and manages to latch on to one undetected.

Under the command of Captain Jason (Robert Urich), the pirates prepare a boarding party. Augmented by several cantankerous robots for the assault, Jason's chief mechanic -- and robot jockey, Roscoe (Michael D. Roberts), assures him these robots are top of the line; although all visual evidence doesn't really bear him out as these robots appear to have thrown all of Asimov's Laws of Robotics out the airlock -- they don't obey orders very well, and appear to be constantly on the verge of falling apart. Cutting a hole into the freighter, we realize we must be watching a comedy because they've blasted their way into the bathroom -- complete with a shocked alien, pants around his ankles, sitting on the toitee. As the crew heads for the hold, they run into a sentry patrol and have to hide. Stumbling into the quarters of Princess Karina (Mary Crosby), they subdue her Nanny (Natalie Cole) and Roscoe manages to fool the guards while Jason finds Karina sleeping in a stasis chamber. Smitten with her beauty, he wants to kidnap her for the ransom but Maida (Angelica Huston!), Roscoe, and the others don't agree and herd Jason off toward the ice hold. 

When they get lost again, Zeno (Ron Perlman!) points to the hold and gets his hand lopped off by a deadly Templar robot. Siccing his own contraptions into the fray, Roscoe watches as the superior robot quickly buzzsaws through them -- save the shortest of his lot, and the little robot proves his, heh, mettle by chopping the bigger robot in half in some of the best robot-carnage ever committed to film. (More on this later.) Eventually, when the pirates do finally manage to commandeer the ship's bridge and start stealing the ice, the alarm is sounded, alerting the other ships. While sending everyone else back to the pirate ship, Jason, thinking with that slight bulge in his pants, detours back and snatches the sleeping Karina and gets her on board just as the Templar flagship closes in. After a quick game of galactic chicken, the pirates make a run for it. But the Templar ship is faster than they are, so Jason orders them to split up and rendezvous on Zagora, the Pirate's Moon. As the compartmented ship breaks apart and two sections rocket to safety, Jason's middle section comes under fire. While Roscoe bemoans the fact that they always come after their section, he does his best to deflect the Templar lasers. Alas, his video game skills prove lacking and the ship's engines are knocked out.

Led by Lord Paisley (Allan Caillou), the Templars board the ship. He removes the Princess before executing the wounded, and then sentences Jason and Roscoe to a life sentence in the slave mines. Packed off to Mithra on a prison barge, the two ex-pirates meet Killjoy (John Mutaszak), a fellow prisoner, who explains that before becoming a slave of the Empire, you have to go through a "redesigning process"  where the prisoners are castrated and lobotomized with the promise that it "won't hurt a bit. Soon enough, Jason and Roscoe find themselves strapped to a conveyor belt, stripped of their clothes and shaved clean. Then the process moves on to the point of no return when a large metal trap-jaw drops down from above, destined to chomp the victim's privates clean off. (With no anesthetic!!!) As Jason assures Roscoe they'll get out of this, somehow, and not to panic, he sees the steel trap drop down between his own legs and starts screaming -- and he keeps on screaming until the trap snaps shut. But as his body trundles along, Jason realizes his *ahem* Captain's Log is still attached. (Thank you, Jeezus.) He passes Princess Karina, who warns him to act like it did happen -- or it will, then waits to give Roscoe the good news, too.

After the pirates complete the false process, they wind up on a show room floor with other models who have lost it all. Princess Karina, Nanny, and her robot, Percy, arrive wanting to buy two new slaves. Selecting our heroes, she leaves to sign the leases while Nanny warns them to do as she says or they'll be returned for some real redesigning. Both men agree, realize there mistake, and agree again in falsetto. But Karina needs them as much as they need her. Wanting to find her lost father, she needs some outside help. Rumored to have been killed by the Templars for finding the mysterious Seventh World, Karina thinks he is still alive. And for those of you playing at home, there is a mythical lost planet of water that's supposedly at the center of a galaxy. Surrounded by a deadly time warp, many expeditions have tried to enter it but they always fail and return aged and decrepit -- until now.

And why they couldn't have explained all this in the opening scroll is beyond me. Oh, well. On with the film...

Karina wants to go to Zagora to find a Lanky Nibs, one of the last people who saw her father alive. When Lord Paisley realizes she's up to something and tries to stop them, Jason, Roscoe, and Karina's entourage make their break along with Killjoy, who also managed to escape the factory with all his parts intact. (How? You'll have to watch the movie.) And, with some timely help from a Pimp-bot, they all manage to make it to Karina's ship and escape. During the three-day flight to Zagora, the pirates learn that Katrina is one tough hombre when she sabotages the ship to self destruct if they try to double-cross her. But she does offer them a third of the water on board if they agree to help her. They do. And also along the way, Roscoe and Jason accidentally infect the ship with Space Herpes. (An even longer story that, unfortunately, will require viewing.)

When they reach Zagora, Jason finds out Maida and Zeno are the only other survivors of his crew. Happy to see each other alive, there are others present who aren't and the lecherous eyes of several bounty hunters have them under surveillance. While Jason negotiates with a large bosomed lizard-woman for transportation to go and see Nibs, the bounty hunters move on Karina. But Maida steps in, decapitating one and sends the other running. (And Angelica Huston missed her calling. I'm telling you, Cutthroat Island should have had her name written all over it.)

Finding old buddy Nibs out in the desert, Jason is shocked by his aged appearance. You see, Nibs was part of a failed attempt to breach the time barrier to get the the Seventh Planet. Nibs (Robert Symonds), a former pirate, recognizes Karina and tells the tale of how her father and his crew found him near death, drifting in space after a failed ice raid. Her father had indeed found the way through the time barrier and made it all the way back from the lost water planet. Wanting to share the wealth with the entire galaxy, the Templars got wind of this, took Karina's father prisoner and massacred his crew. Only Nibs managed to escape, but not before he found out that the prisoner was turned over to Wendon to guard on his isolated planet. Who's Wendon? Well, that'll have to wait because the bounty hunters have regrouped and returned -- this time with an armored death-mobile. They kill the lizard woman and run Percy down, but with much swashing of buckle, Jason manages to turn the tide and save Karina. Unfortunately, Nibs is wounded badly and his dying words are a plea for them to find the lost water planet.

Rounding up their crew, and a new batch of robots, Jason sets a course for the planet of "Weird" Wendon, a widely known intergalactic eccentric. Along the way, the rest of the crew find out that the ship is infected with Space Herpes. And upon arrival, the landing party is quickly captured by Wendon's buxom Amazonian Royal Guard and hauled before his presence, where Wendon (Bruce Vilanch -- Wait. Bruce Vilanch has a buxom Amazonian royal guard?) is about to pass sentence on the trespassers when Roscoe swings in and saves the day. During the ensuing mêlée, Wendon's head is knocked off -- but he doesn't seem to mind until Karina points a laser pistol right between his dismembered eyes. Calling off the Amazons first, he then promises to take them to Karina's father. Jason scoops up the loose head and they move into a side chamber. Inside, Karina embraces her father but something is wrong with him. When Roscoe takes a closer look, he confirms it's not really him but a sophisticated Alpha Robot. In tears, Karina falls into Jason's arms. Cooing at these signs of affection, Jason drops Wendon's dismembered head on the floor. ( And he should have kicked it for good measure.) 

Taking Wendon's head and the robot back to the ship, Roscoe plugs the imposter into the ship's computer and taps into it's memory banks. He can't find any information on the course through the time warp, and the only thing that keeps coming up is the image of a ring. Realizing it must be her father's, Karina demands that Wendon tell them where it is. Denial gets him nowhere, so Wendon finally fesses up and starts working his tongue around inside his mouth -- then sticks it out with the ring dangling on the tip. *bleaugh* Jason asks if he has anything else hidden in there, but trust me, I don't think we want to see what else has been in there. Taking the ring, Karina tries to clean it and triggers a holographic message from her father who gives them the coordinates to the lost water world from beyond the grave. With that, they set course for the center of the galaxy and a safe window through the time-warp. And along the way, Jason and Karina finally do the horizontal bop with the help of a Soylent Green type slide-show and musical extravaganza. 

Just as they approach the right vector to enter the time warp, the Templars spring their trap. As a Templar ship quickly closes in on them, Lord Paisley appears on screen, thanking Karina for unwittingly leading them to the lost water world -- so the Templars can destroy it! Roscoe can't believe how fast the Templar ship came out of nowhere, but Karina says it's just an illusion; they're entering the time warp, and things are just starting to speed up; and the further they go in, the quicker things will age until they come out the other side. If they come out the other side.

While Maida tries to keep them on course -- or risk being lost in the void until they're all dead, Roscoe starts activating robots and Jason rallies his troops to repel the Templar borders. Mayhem ensues as time whizzes by in flashes and burps, and the combatants start visibly aging as skin wrinkles and beards grow in rapidly. On the bridge, Karina gets sick so Nanny takes her to their quarters. Meanwhile, the battle continues but the pirates' cheaper models are no match for the Templar robots. As they barely hold the line, Wendon, who has a new robot body, brings word to Jason that Karina is pregnant. Saying he'll be back in a minute -- a very long time under the circumstances -- when Jason goes to check on her, Karina presents to him their newborn son. Jason denies it's his until the little tyke pees on him -- so it must be his. He apologizes, but duty calls, and heads back to the fight where their robots are still getting demolished and they're all getting a little bit grayer in the beard. Back in her room, Karina chases the rapidly aging toddler around and begs him to leave poor Nanny alone. She needn't have bothered -- with time accelerating, the elderly woman has already been reduced to a skeleton.

Hobbling back to he hold, the aged and nearly decrepit pirates watch as Roscoe unleashes Buford -- his best robot, and that's why he painted him black, cannibalized from the Alpha model -- who staunches the onslaught, giving the men a much needed respite. But it isn't long enough as Zeno falls first, then Killjoy -- who cries he could have killed them all just ten minutes ago -- leaving only Jason and Roscoe to defend the ship. Suddenly, a hole is blown in the side of the hold and several robots carry in the now ancient Lord Paisley. Ordering his robots to kill the last two pirates once and for all, Jason and Roscoe, now too old to run away, are resigned to their doom. All seems lost until a hearty cry of "Here I come, dad!" resonates through the hold. Jason and Roscoe look up to see a familiar looking young man swing a large block of ice that obliterates what's left of Paisley's robots. Then an elderly Karina rushed in, telling Jason that's their son (Urich again) just saved them and Paisley keels over dead as our family embraces. But then time starts hiccupping again, and soon everyone is back on the bridge, alive and well and young again. They made it through the time warp, but the Templar ship was one degree off and is now lost in the time warp forever. As the crew embrace each other, a beautiful blue world comes into view -- is this supposed to be Earth? Gawking at all that water, Roscoe happily announces that these Ice Pirates are now officially out of business.

The End

This is one movie that takes way too much grief for being just another post Star Wars knock-off. I admit it's a guilty pleasure. However, there is a lot of fun to be had here if you'll just give it a chance. Sure, the comedy is hit and miss, and when it misses, it misses badly. But when it hits -- boy, it bops it right out of the park.

A collaboration between writer Stanford Sherman and director Stewart Raffill, both men had a hand in Napoleon and Samantha -- that's the film with a young Jodie Foster, Michael Douglass and a lion. Sherman also wrote the sci-fi/fantasy Krull, while Rafill would go on to torment us with the gawdawful Mac & Me and the even gawdawfuller Tammy and the T-Rex -- but please, don't let that scare you away from this film. Never dull, the plot keeps moving along nicely. This helps during the whiffs and groans, but it doesn't really allow the good parts much time to shine, either. That ending fight in the time warp is sheer genius, and the written word just doesn't do it justice. (Especially Roscoe's huge white afro.) The references to other sci-fi films that came before it do come fast and furious, and these will either be a homage or rip-off, depending on how much you like the film.

The cast is fine, even though they all have trouble saying some lines with a straight face. Robert Urich makes a fine roguish hero. Sure he can't stack up to Han Solo, but who can? Co-star Michael D. Roberts was destined for a supporting role in TV's Manimal. And Mary Crosby would go down in history as the person who shot J.R. Ewing on Dallas. Lending their support is the always reliable Perlman and Angelica Huston does nothing to embarrass herself. Really. Hell, they even wheeled out John Carradine, as the head Templar bad guy, for a scene that seems trite on the surface but is played with such dignity, that you feel great for the guy after all the other dreck he'd been in.

The special-effects are pretty standard for the time. Stock-sound effect lasers and model spaceships -- that bank around rather oddly. And the only time the F/X truly breaks down is during Wendon's initial decapitation; it doesn't take sharp eyes to spot Vilanch's shoulders, decked out in black, during scenes when others are "supposedly" holding his loose head up. Maybe they were supposed to clean it up in post production and forgot? Or maybe they just hoped we wouldn't notice. Most of the futuristic sets and props were pilfered from other productions, most notably Logan's Run, and the film is kind of anachronistic with all that futuristic hardware and lasers but everyone seems content to fight with swords -- and most of the robots are armed with axes and maces. Truthfully, the film does owe more to the old pirate movies of the '30s than the later sci-fi epics of the '70s and '80s. Even Bruce Broughton's rousing musical score is more Errol Flynn than Darth Vader.

All the aliens are designed for quick laughs; a nice booger picking scene, a plucked alien parrot, but they're mostly there to clutter up the background -- except for the rogue Space Herpe; another by-product of the '80s when sexually transmitted diseases, along with casual drug use, were the epitome of high comedy. Where the film positively excels, though, is in it's production design -- especially with all the wide variety of robots. A sucker for robots am I, and what makes the frenetic robots in Ice Pirates so great is that they seem so plausibly real. These things aren't sleek and streamlined but are big and clunky and prone to breakdowns and malfunctions. Hats off to Michael Shane McCracken, Michael John McCracken and Ray Raymond for the robot designs and Gary Brockette for the robot choreography during the chaotic robot carnage. For the most part, these robots were played for laughs, too. And when one of the scared robots crapped his pants -- jettisoning a stream of oil, bolts, and washers -- before going into battle, and the next robot in line slipped and fell on the soiled oil-slick, I nearly crapped my pants from laughing so hard.

So there you go: Booger-picking aliens, Space Herpes, and a robot that craps his pants. If that isn't a ringing endorsement of The Ice Pirates, then I don't know what else needs to be said.

Posted: 12/31/03. Copy and paste at your own legal risk.

Questions? Comments? Shoot me an e-mail. My dubbing policy.

How our Rating System works. Our Philosophy.