Review of The Black Hole (1979) by Omar F — 28 Feb 2011

When I was a wee boy, I loved this movie - Vincent, Bob, Maximillian (the resident robots) were an obsession as was 'Star' and his double-ended laser gun. Viewing this again, some 25+ years later, Vincent and Bob look like pre-cursors for Henry vacuum cleaners and Maximillian like a cross between Metal Mickey and a Post-Box (Star's laser guns are still pretty cool though). Deplorable dialogue and acting (with the exception of Robert Forster - who is cool as a cucumber as always), an ending that kinda rips off 2001, and some shoddy looking robots lead it to being a farrago of ideas created for no particular reason other than an attempted money spinning follow-up to Star Wars. It cost half as much again to make than Star Wars and while it didn't totally bomb, proof that there are legs in jumping on a massively successful pre-cursor, it unsurprisingly suffered poor critical and audience response.

There is some great art design in the space backdrops and mother-ship creation, but the rest is really Disney's biggest ever head-fuck.