Movie Review: The Ice Pirates (1984)
I don’t know about you but after the Star Wars movies came out, I expected a deluge of similar quality sci-fi/fantasy fare, not the wasteland of, cheap, bad sci-fi space adventure movies that we ended up getting.
Sure, the 80’s produced plenty of other types of sci-fi classics, from The Terminator to Back to the Future, Blade Runner to Batteries not Included that were great but none of those were great space adventures like Star Wars. Even Lucasfilm stumbled with those terrible Ewok TV movies; Caravan of Courage and the Battle for Endor.
Of those films that did try to replicate Star Wars’ success, they added nothing new and failed miserably. The Last Starfighter had the space battles and hero’s journey, although set a little close to home. The 3D animated Starchaser: The Legend of Orin came close, too close in fact; it stole liberally from Star Wars without adding anything original.
For me, the true loss of innocence growing up, was realising half way through Space Raiders that the reason it all seemed so familiar that ALL the space battle scenes in the film had been recycled from Roger Corman’s Battle beyond the Stars , James Cameron’s first film as a production designer.
Which brings us to The Ice Pirates. Directed by Stewart Raffill, (who would later go on to direct the execrable E.T. rip-off Mac and Me), the film does at least try to replicate the good parts of the Star Wars formula while adding something new. In the same way that Lucas mixed samurai legends, star ships , the hero’s journey, ancient religions, cute droids and fantastical alien creatures together for Star Wars, The Ice Pirates took most of that and added some humour and pirates, honest to goodness Errol Flynn style buccaneers!
A motley crew if ever I saw one
Pirate captain Jason, played by Robert Urich (Spencer for Hire) and his crew wear a worrying amount of leather, sport scraggy beards, tattoos and floppy boots like pirates of old, as well as brandishing swords and laser pistols. Instead of booty, they seek water as in the far flung future the galaxy has somehow “run dry”, with the last supply of usable water under the control of the evil Templars, who, inexplicably, wear chain mail in space.
Hardly the most threatening of enemies?
Through a series of mishaps Jason and his second command Roscoe, played by Michael D Roberts (Rain Man, Street Kings), find themselves blackmailed into helping Princess Karina, her nanny and butler-bot Percy, search her father, who has disappeared on a quest to find “The Seventh World”. Legend has it that water is so plentiful there, that it FALLS FROM THE SKY! I’ll give you one guess where that world is.
While all of this may sound terrible to you it’s the cast and their interactions that elevates Ice Pirates above the other Star Wars rip offs.
Jason’s crew includes Anjelica Huston (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Witches, The Addams Family) as Maida; a bad-ass pilot and sword fighter; Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Sons Of Anarchy) as Zeno, hapless pirate and occasional ship’s chef; John Matuszak (former American football player who also played sloth in The Goonies) as the endlessly cheery Killjoy, and of course Michael D Roberts as Roscoe, with whom Urich seems to be sharing a joke for the whole film. Mary Crosby (Dallas) fills the role of Princess Karina and sparks fly with Jason.
DO NOT mess with Anjelica Huston
Every reaction between these players seems natural and unforced, even when dealing with utter nonsense. The best moments in the film stem from Jason and Roscoe’s bemused reactions to the situations they find themselves in. Everyone seems to have had a whale of a time making the film and instead of ruining the film or turning it into a spoof, this makes it seem like a tight knight group of pirates are out a-pillaging, even if joking while doing so.
Dinner à la Hellboy
Apart from the cast however the comedy in the script is very hit and miss. While not an out and out spoof, there are some terrible jokes, with a section which must have been inspired by Alien featuring a “Space Herpy”, some gags around threatened “redesign” by the Templars; being forcibly lobotomised castrated and sold as a brainwashed slave, as well as a host “comedy” robots that include the omega battle robots that the crew bulk out their numbers with, Beauford the robot ninja, and a robot pimp who pops up at one stage to provide Roscoe with a lift.
Yep, that is what a robot pimp looks like. Be thankful you can’t hear his accent.
The climax of the movie is one big joke as the pirates and Templars enter the “time warp” that surrounds the supposed location of the 7th World, where days end up passing like minutes and the two forces fight each other and old age. The robots rust, haircuts grow to ridiculous lengths, (and in one case width and height), and back and joint problems start to severely impair our heroes prowess in battle.
Time Warps can really mess up your style.
Needless to say Ice Pirates does not end on a downer and the film moves along at a fair clip, never really outstaying its welcome. The plot does lag slightly in the third act, just before the build up to the finale, but this is hardly fatal.
Having first seen The Ice Pirates on VHS from the local video store as a kid, and having developed a fondness for the film over the years, its next to impossible for me to be objective about it.
It is however difficult to recommend the film to anyone who hasn’t seen it before now, or is out of short trousers, but it always holds a place in my heart for its endearing goofiness. If you’re looking for a fun sci-fi adventure, you could do a lot worse.