Galaxy Quest

Galaxy of Humor

If I may lapse into cheesiness for a moment, you don't have to go on a quest to find comedy in Galaxy Quest. Sci-fi fandom, especially that built around the Star Trek universe, is a rich source of comic material, and very little of it goes untapped here. Fans of any such shows will nod with recognition many times at the situations and characters. I guffawed more than once, and was even surprised by a few of the plot points.

Comedy Stars

Galaxy Quest shows off the comic talents of its cast very well. After Toy Story and Toy Story 2, this is definitely Tim Allen's best work on the big screen. His usual swagger is a good match for the off screen ego of his character and the on screen ego of his character's character. Tony Shalhoub gets more screen time than he did in Men in Black or Gattaca, or even "Wings". Alan Rickman may be the voice of God in Dogma, but he's the Shakesperean actor trapped in poorly-written TV-drama dialogue here. His frustration at being pigeonholed is very entertaining. I did find it oddly amusing that, despite his bellyaching, he's never seen without his skull cap.

The Thermians present an interesting challenge to the actors: they must be completely unconvincing as humans. All of them move a little differently, almost as if they were clowns. Their speech patterns are invented out of whole cloth, but they pull it off. Enrico Colantoni is completely unrecognizable from his character on "Just Shoot Me", and it's entirely as a result of his performance, not the comparatively minimal makeup for the Thermians.

Nitpicking (Beware the Big Spoiler!)

• When the computer is counting down to the destruction of the ship, its time is one second ahead of the timer display. When the display rolls over from 2.000 to 1.999, the computer is saying "one". This could be explained away by saying that the voice is counting down to the time when the timer will stop counting, but this then tips the audience off to the joke too early. This isn't meant as a really serious complaint because they make such an excellent joke out of it.
• The Thermians, as we are occasionally reminded, are not the least bit humanoid in their natural shape. After Mathesar has been tortured by Sarris, his artificially- created humanoid image is wearing a leg brace. It's a good visual shorthand to show that he's been injured, but would the Thermian image generators pick that as the metaphor? Not to say that their technology wasn't already demonstrated as spectacular, but that seems like a bit of a stretch.
• I was disappointed that Sarris wasn't the least bit original. He looked almost exactly like one of the Gorgonites from Small Soldiers, a movie of which I do not enjoy being reminded.