Normally when someone is not laughing, and everyone else is, it is because they don’t get the joke. I like to think, however, that I have just as much science-fiction experience as the next high-school geek, and it was more their misfortune to have a reviewer who doesn’t laugh at bad comedy.Looking at the production from a more objective perspective I can appreciate that the use of fruit to symbolise the planets, and kitchen utensils for spaceships is quite clever. However the extraordinary claim that they have included ‘every space movie’ and ‘every space craft’ is a little over indulgent on their part. I enjoyed the sci-fi film and classical backing track, which added a subtle irony, but not the sluggish pace of the production, or the rushed and paltry resolution later on.The overdone plot line follows two astronauts (sorry one astronaut and one scientist) from NASA who are on a mission to inspect a signal-projecting monolith near Jupiter. They have been in space for nearly three years and are only just getting to really know each other. Inevitably while looking for the monolith they discover a massive spaceship, The Pegasus, which all thought was lost in space. In typical low-budget film style they dare to board the empty vessel discover what went wrong. The subsequent action has its moments but is not overly impressive. Throughout the production I couldn’t stop thinking that this was my payback for saying I didn’t like comedy.What confused me most was that everyone in the theatre was laughing, therefore I have to assume that this is the kind of humour that most people want to watch: obvious, trivial and non-developmental. The one line I did get a kick out of was ‘higher than Jimi Hendrix smoking a spliff on top of an acid factory’ – note I was the only one laughing that time.
