Review of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996) by David L — 05 Dec 2007

If you, the viewer, are not familiar with Mystery Science Theater 3000, better known as MST3K, I recommend that you rent/buy/borrow, beg, or steal tapes and dvds to become a tad familiar with the concept.

The concept is: riffing a B-or-worse-scifi-movie; the victim, er-- subject, in this case, is "This Island Earth", a classic from the 50's. There's this guy (Mike) who's been shot up to an orbiting space station (the Satellite of Love, or SOL) by a Mad Scientist (Dr. Clayton Forrester). Mike is a replacement test subject (Joel, who made the robots for companionship, escaped), and he and Joel's 'bots (short for ro-bots) ease the stress of being test subjects by making wise@$$ remarks while the movie is running. Then there are little interval segments that attempt to tell a coherent narrative.

The catch is that the bots are actually only puppets made from a gumball machine head, salad bowl, Tupperware interlocking set of flower vases, and armatures from folding adjustable desk lamps. The original actor who voices Crow T. Robot is Trace Beaulieu, who also plays Dr. Forrester . The guy who voices Tom Servo is Kevin Murphy-- well, if you really want to see him, you'll have to find the episodes on tape and go looking for his appearances as other characters.

This movie is just as good as the episodes that have appeared either on Comedy Central or the Sci-Fi Channel, but this time Best Brains, the production company, had more money to make better sets, props, and better staging of gags. The Hubble was great, as was the amusing and embarrassing segment where Dr. Forrester ends up in the Metalunan guy's shower. [aaagghhh!!!].

MST3K: The Movie was what I hoped at the time to be the first in a long line of franchise movies. Too bad that didn't happen but we still have this movie and the episodes of the series to enjoy.