Review of Free Enterprise (1948) by Joshua H — 29 Jun 2007

I thought it was pretty good, although I'm not quite sure how to describe it - it's similar to a couple of Kevin Smith films ("Clerks" and "Chasing Amy"), but rather more mainstream.

Generally speaking, I'd say that Star Trek/Star Wars fans get sneered at by two camps - lots of people will just dismiss them as sad (for having a fringe interest), while other SF fans look down on them for not being fringe enough. By contrast, the characters in this film celebrate the fact that they enjoy the series. For instance, there's one scene where a bunch of friends are sitting in a restaurant, waiting for a midnight showing of "Wrath of Khan"; one guy looks at his watch and says "Right, time to go, for ..." and then they all throw their heads back and shout "KHAN!" in unison.

I'm not quite sure how auto-biographical it is, but the two writers (named the same as the lead characters) have thrown in a lot of geeky references, and apparently the DVD has a mini-encyclopaedia as an extra that lists them all. William Shatner plays himself (more or less) in this, and the Sky info-blurb described his performance as spoofing himself, but I don't really agree with that assessment. I don't know much about his personal life, but I thought he gave a sensitive potrayal of what his life could plausibly be like.