We Have IssuesStarcrash (1978) – Review
In the deluge of cash-ins that followed in the wake of George Lucas’ Star Wars, the torrent of cheapo pretenders provided derivative thrills of all shapes and colours. However, few contained more shapes and more colours than Luigi Cozzi’s “space-ghetti” opus, Starcrash, an Italian/US co-production that stands as one of the more endearingly nonsensical riffs of a galaxy far, far away.
Like a lot of Italian movies that cheekily took inspiration from other, more successful American films, Starcrash managed to build something of a cult following while delivering a derranged acid trip version of your favorite movies, but considering that Cozzi would ape Alien two years by blowing out stomachs rather than burst chests, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Starcrash is a camp supernova that makes the rainbow colours of Flash Gordon look like Alien³ in comparison.
So brace yourself as we make the jump to lightspeed to a universe full of iffy stop motion, voluminous hair and more knee-high stripper boots in one film than the Skywalker Saga managed throughout its entire duration.
Wiley smugglers Stella Star and Akton are proficient at two things, staying one step ahead of the law and practicing superlative, intergalactic hair care, but after their luck finally runs out, the pair find themselves in the clutches of the Imperial Space Police. However, after the talented, scantily-clad pilot escapes from her prison planet, she’s reunited with the mystical Akton when she recaptured, but offered a mission by the Emperor of the First Circle of the Universe. All they have to do is locate the wrecked ship that contained the Emperor’s son, who himself was on a mission to locate the secret weapon of incredible power owned by space despot, Count Zarth Arn.
Teaming up with their arresting officers – Texas drawling robot, Elle and humourless green-skinned chief, Thor – the quartet head out and have a string of adventures as they attempt to seek out the space-WMD of the extravagant Count Zarth Arn. But after visiting a clutch of planets and fending off attacks from Amazonian women, avoiding giant living statues, being stranded on a hostile ice planet and facing a turncoat within their own ranks, they soon get closer to discovering the Count’s weapon. However, while they find the Emperor’s son, Prince Simon, they also have to counter a trap sprung by the flamboyant villain that hopes to lure the Emperor into battle.
The stage is set for a gigantic (and near incomprehensible) space battle, but while the cackling count seems to hold all the cards thanks to his secret weapon and his sword twirling, robot henchmen, he hasn’t counted on the fact that Akton has suspiciously ill-defined powers and a legally questionable laser sword that just might save the day.
There are a fair few aspects of Starcrash (original Italian title: “Starfights Beyond The Third Dimension”) that are legitimately pretty cool – no, really. For a start, the basic look of the film, with multicoloured stars or red and blue and yellow, feels like it’s been ripped right out of a sci-fi comic of the 50s and while the spaceships are obviously airfix models cobbled together, you can tell Cozzi is leaning more to the fantasy of the Lou Ferrigno Hercules movies he went on to make than the worn, lived-in world favoured by the likes of Lucas and Scott. In fact, a closer comparison would be more like less horny Barbarella – although Caroline Munro’s wardrobe would debate that – as the imaginative sets (why does Zarth Arn’s control room have a fireman’s pole ten feet from a flight of stairs?); imaginative but illogical vehicle design (one ship is essentially a giant robot hand for some reason) and lava-lamp obsessed visual effects evoke a far trippier experience than the film whose coat tails it’s riding.
However, some aspects of Starcrash actually hold up far better than it has any right to, other parts, such as the plot and performances, launch the film squarely into so-bad-it’s-good territory. Caroline Munro gives good sci-fi bombshell, especially when the film requires her to negotiate an ice planet in a see-through space suit and hooker heels, and David Hasslehoff pompadoured space prince offers up a nicely generic, swashbuckling himbo. However, Marjoe Gortner’s Akton is a curly-haired, bug-eyed space oddity who I guess is supposed to be some sort of cosmic powered wild card, but his loosely defined abilities end up being a get out of jail free pass for some lazy writing as the script has him resurrect and develop hitherto unmentioned abilities purely just to get his friends (and the filmmakers) out of any jam. Also, casting Gortner as some sort of rubber clad messiah is made all the more weirder when you realise that he actually became the youngest ordained preacher at the age of four (no, really) and later appeared in a self titled, Oscar winning exposé about himself and the religious Revivalist circuit.
Elsewhere, Christopher Plummer shows up as the Emperor of the Universe and the stress of running such a vast kingdom has obviously taken its toll as the actor plays his ruler as someone who seens to be tripping major balls. In fact, Plummer acts so medicated, I feel he cab actually see the phantasmagorical visual effects live on-set before they were even inserted into the finished film. Much like Akton, it seems that the Emperor has access to plot-saving powers the writers didnt think they needed to establish, such as a space ray that can freeze time for three minutes that greatly improves the survival rate of our heroes when they can’t beat a ticking clock of an exploding planet. However, he’s the very model of understatement when compared to whatever the Hell Joe Spinell is trying to achieve with his flamboyant antagonist. Strutting about the place sporting the facial hair of a 1920s hypnotist and breaking out in sporadic laughter at the drop of a hat, it’s obvious that the actor is having a fucking ball, but he doesn’t have much more to add other than pantomime villainy and a couple of perky, stop motion, mechanical henchbots who warmly (and cheaply) evoke the sword swinging skeletons of Jason And The Argonauts.
So, some of Starcrash’s deranged randomness works. Elle, the Texan accented cop-bot makes no scenes whatsoever, yet I warmed to him oddly quickly and any space movie that gets a score from John Barry certainly can’t be all bad (ask Moonraker or The Black Hole). But a lot of it is just stupid and I can’t help but feel that a lot of Cozzi’s eccentricities would have played better in a Heavy Metal style animated format rather than some creaky live action. Also, no one tell Lucasfilm about the lightsabers, yeah?
One of those loopy Italian ripoffs that tries to match the budget of its inspiration with unhinged imagination, Starcrash ends up being a memorable also-ran that earns it’s so bad it’s good label with gusto. But while we’re blessed with the sight of the Hoff having a lightsaber fight with robots that are about as agile as toddlers, it’s still light years away from the timeless wonders it’s trying to duplicate.
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