On S List of Movie Reviews
(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)
SpaceCamp (1986)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
2/15
2/15:
The space shuttle Challenger blew up during liftoff on January 28, 1986.
Hollywood had finished filming SpaceCamp prior to the disaster before it was slated to be released five months afterwards.
The outcome would've been the same either way because it tanked at the box office since most of the public had already lost
interest in NASA.
SpaceCamp is Meatballs meets Apollo 13.
It's annoying to see the young teenagers getting the chance to go up in outer space with little training and acting
like they know how to operate a space shuttle. Worse, it's hard to see the film without thinking of the Challenger
explosion. NASA reached its peak during the 60's and 70's and would never be near the same height afterwards. Today, space
exploration is generally considered a waste of money.
All of the actors are awful, but it's Joaquin Phoenix, whose first name is "Leaf" for fuck's sake, who hams it up with
his dorky Star Wars argot. Equally bad is the inclusion of R2-D2-like model with HAL
9000 mentality to stay consistent with the theme. It's incredible that nobody noticed the $27 million robot going missing.
After the counselors saw Jinx in the dorm, they don't bother with taking it back.
Once up in outer space, the view is nice if redundant. Then, the problem is immediately noticed: the halo light around
characters against the dark backdrop. At one point, I can see the stuff attached to them which are
futilely erased with a felt-tip black marker. Of course, conflict after conflict begin to show up, and the kids come up
with mind-blowing solutions to resolve them at the last second. They finally get back to Earth in a predictable manner.
Throughout, the show is full of technical errors such as Space Camp located in Huntsville, Alabama, but nothing
has ever been launched from there.
All in all, you're better off seeing The Right Stuff than groaning over the
nauseous sight of child actors in SpaceCamp.