Humour often dates poorly and "The Ice Pirates" is a case in point: the future as an 'extension of the eighties' generates more laughs at the film than with the film. Having not watched the movie when it came out, I couldn't filter it through fond memories, so I was stuck watching, de novo, 90 minutes of goofy slapstick and silly, predictable gags. Given what they have to work with, the acting is OK (they all seem to be having fun in the roles). If the Academy ever does a tribute to Angelica Huston, I hope they include some of the iconic images of her in her space pirate outfit

Ice Pirates is a B-movie, it's campy, trashy and it is most of the time hilariously funny.To me it probably is the funniest sf movie I ever watched. Sure, Galaxy Quest is funny, but it is also totally selfconcious, the whole humour comes from making fun of Star Trek.Ice Pirates also makes fun of sf tropes, but it never takes itself seriously. While the story might be less strange than Buckaroo Banzai, the former is as quirky as the latter.On the other hand, some of the visuals still look great to me.This is one of the few films, I loved as a child, that stood up to the test of time and entertained the adult me as well as the young peg.

Awful Star Wars knock-off with a slightly more comic tinge. Robert Urich stars as the leader of a group of ice pirates, who steal ice because water is the most valuable substance in the universe now (how all the poor people stay alive is a mystery). He hooks up with Mary Crosby (Bing's daughter, around 25 and a total cutie), a princess looking for her missing father. Also in the cast are an embarrassed-looking Anjelica Huston in some hilarious sci-fi get-ups and a pudgy, short-ish Ron Perlman (whom I thought was seven feet tall from his other roles!). And John Carradine, who looks days from death and Hollywood Squares funnyman (relative term) Bruce Vilanch. If you ever wanted to see Bruce Vilanch get decapitated, here's your film. But, then again, even that's not worth seeing, as it doesn't shut him up at all (think he might have been a robot, but I nodded off a couple of times).

After missing out on this innumerable times on TCM UK, I decided to check it out given its sci-fi/adventure/camp pedigree: I knew I’d be in for a thoroughly silly ride – but it was also astoundingly bad! Anyway, perhaps appropriately given the characters involved, the script rips off many sci-fi titles then of recent vintage – SOYLENT GREEN (1973), ZARDOZ (1974), LOGAN’S RUN (1976; to the extent that it was filmed on some of the self-same sets!), STAR WARS (1977), ALIEN (1979) and MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981)! The plot is simple but not exactly engaging: from the title one can deduce that water has become scarce on the planet where all of this takes place – so our ragtag buccaneer heroes take it upon themselves to steal ice blocks from the tyrannical Templar(!) rulers. Also involved is a beautiful princess (Mary Crosby, daughter of Bing!) in search of her father, the deposed king; by the way, the cast includes another famous offspring: Anjelica Huston (daughter of John) as one of the pirate band – thankfully, the actress’ mistake in accepting such a role would soon be forgotten in the wake of her winning an Oscar (under her father’s guidance, no less) for PRIZZI’S HONOR (1985). Since STAR WARS had Peter Cushing as the “Supreme Commander”, the film-makers opted to have a screen legend of their own – 78-year old John Carradine (who’s seen strapped to a sort of operating table during his one brief scene!).The most notable bits (for all the wrong reasons) are: the alien using the toilet; the castration machine; the clumsy antics (including karate-style combat!) of the inevitable robot companions; the goofy slave/eunuch make-up worn at one point by the heroes; the recurring attacks by the “space herpies” (whatever that is); the climax in which the characters are made to age when going through a time-warp (Crosby becomes pregnant, gives birth, and sees her son grow up in the space of 30 seconds, while leading man Robert Urich himself is replaced by John Ford stalwart Hank Worden for this scene!) – incidentally, the jump-cuts adopted here (intending to denote the rapid passage of time) are not only unsuccessful but downright irritating.