Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 25, 2017

Even as the movie is titled Spacehunter, "space" doesn't play much of a role. Director Lamont Johnson's film is instead less a Star Wars knockoff and more a Mad Max-styled flick, the story of a desolate planet, lost ladies, a galactic bounty hunter, some ruffians, a cyborg villain, and even a few laser blasts. The movie shares a visual style, but not necessarily a tone, with another 80s film, Ice Pirates, but it lacks the vision and production values of even that meager film. It's gritty, cheap Sci-Fi, decent genre entertainment but hardly a bastion of creativity and not even all that pretty to look at, either.

A luxury star cruiser is damaged in flight. Passengers are shuffled into escape pods, placed in suspended animation, and awoken once the shuttle has auto-piloted to the nearest "E" class planet, or world capable of sustaining human life. One particular pod lands on a barren world. But no sooner do the three ladies inside awaken from their slumber, they're taken prison by a band of raiders who kidnap them for their leader's, Overdog (an unrecognizable Michael Ironside), pleasures and purposes. In space, a bounty hunter named Wolff (Peter Strauss) and his partner Chalmers (Andrea Marcovicci) intercept a transmission promising 3,000 "Megacredits" for the captured ladies safe return. Soon, Wolff finds himself knee-deep in conflict on the world, befriended by a drifter named Niki (Molly Ringwald), and accompanied by an old acquaintance, Washington (Ernie Hudson), as they come ever closer to Overdog's devious lair.

Spacehunter doesn't really work, doesn't really resonate. It's a decent enough "road" movie, the "road" here being on alien terrain in something out of the aforementioned Mad Max where steel-plated vehicles and ruffians wearing spiky armor populate a desert, barren wasteland. The movie is more "adventuring" and less "fighting." A few action scenes are interspersed throughout, with some laser blasts, explosions, vehicles, and, at the end, a gauntlet of various traps through which a character must maneuver, all offering a reprieve from the film's excess characterization and failure to paint any sort of interesting picture of its world. The movie never gains any traction, struggling to form an identity, seeming to want to be an action film, a buddy film, a road trip film, a dystopian film, and a comedy all at once. Characters -- even the big bad Overdog -- lack any sort of flavor, and the film never seems sure of what to do with any of them as it waits for them all to converge at the end.

Production design is...interesting. The escape pods are fluidly angular and the suits the escapees are seen wearing at the beginning make them resemble giant insects instead of hibernating humans. The film gets away with disguising "cheap" as "rugged." Starship interiors, costumes, and the like enjoy a naturally worn, well-used appearance that fits into the rough-and-tumble world the movie promotes. Even the bad guy's lair and cybernetic body parts, the latter of which are admittedly somewhat complex, balance that look of budget and worn-down utility quite well. The movie's environment essentially looks like Mars -- it's rock and red -- and part of what makes the movie so dull is the sheer lack of diversity of setting. It's all either dark and dreary or red, red, red. Elmer Bernstein does add some credibility to the film as composer; the various themes are familiarly Bernstein, very much grounded in his style, but his score gives the movie some much needed spunk and spirit to carry it through its visual doldrums and plot tediousness. The cast is fine, nothing remarkable in terms of delivery or characterization (and it's not as if the script gives them any real personality, anyway). The movie is probably most notable for seeing Molly Ringwood outside of her established confines and stretching beyond Teen movies like Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink, playing here a spunky and rugged "Scav."

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone was originally conceived as a 3D film with a wider ~2.35:1 aspect ratio. Unfortunately, Mill Creek's Blu-ray features only the film's 2D presentation, released at 1.85:1 and, on Blu-ray, with the MPEG-2 codec. This version does feel cramped in some shots; composition feels cluttered and action and characters occasionally have no room to breathe. The transfer is not in particularly good shape. Opening title wobble is evident. An excess of print deterioration -- speckles, scratches, splotches -- is visible throughout. Noise flutters into some scenes, and even a few false colors appear. Occasionally harsh edge halos are evident. Black levels are inconsistent, particularly when they push pale around the edges and reveal heavy, swarming grain. Details are by-and-large disappointing. The image lacks crispness, stability or the ability to reveal even moderate textures, a shame considering all of the rough terrain and worn objects throughout the film. Grain occasionally settles down and reveals a firmer, more natural, tighter presentation, with a few shots looking downright filmic and attractively so, but generally the image is pasty, flat, soft, and absent any serious detailing. Colors are largely limited to the red push that saturates practically every frame, particularly outdoors. Some of the locations within Overdog's lair prove a little more forgiving, but they're fairly dark. The transfer's biggest shortcoming is its inability to hold a firm, film-like image. It's too soft and sloppy.

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone arrives on Blu-ray with an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 soundtrack. The presentation enjoys good, positive width along the front. Music has no problem stretching the front end as Bernstein's score spills forth with a surprising level of instrumental nuance, detail, and separation. Width is constant, never encroaching towards the center. Action effects are likewise enjoyable. While perhaps not quite as detailed as the music, they stretch the ends and open up the stage wide enough to accommodate the chaotic din of battle. Whether laser blasts, rumbly vehicles, or screaming men, the track presents with a healthy amount of vigor and vitality that makes up for its shortcoming of perfect clarity with commendable effort. Dialogue is center-focused, pushed to the middle and enjoying good, accurate definition and prioritization above other sound elements.

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone contains no supplemental content. The disc begins movie playback upon insertion. A "top menu" is included, but offers only options to turn subtitles on and off.

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone is more Mad Max than it is Star Wars. It's a fairly dull movie, thanks in large part to a bland and largely unchanging setting. The plot isn't overwrought but it takes too long to get anywhere or do anything. Acting and action are decent enough, and the score from a legendary composer is spirited, but the movie is more sloth than success. Mill Creek's featureless Blu-ray offers decent audio but underwhelming video. Worth a look on a slow Saturday afternoon.