Low Ball

Look, we're big fans of Mel Brooks, but Spaceballs stinks on ice. It's a dimwitted Star Wars parody that makes Episodes 1-3 look like The Godfather.

Rick Moranis does a nice job as Dark Helmet (the Vader character), and Brooks is all right as the evil president. Daphne Zuniga has the Princess Leia look down, but that's about all she brings to the role. The Han Solo and Chewbacca roles are played by Bill Pullman (in a big step down from Zero Effect) and John Candy as a man-dog named Barf. When Candy can't get any laughs wearing a dog costume, you know you've got problems.

The jokes are not funny. The delivery is labored, stilted in a way that wouldn't have gone over in vaudeville. The visual gags rarely deliver - except maybe the Princess's braid bun headphones.

"Best" of all was the Ghostbusters-style funky theme song, sung by the Spinners (!) and produced by Jellybean (!!!). I know that all movies in the 80s had theme songs like this, but why!?!

In conclusion: this is the first movie we watched in Blu-ray.