Amazon Women on the Moon |
  • USA • 1987 • 85m •    • Directed by: Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, John Landis, Robert K. Weiss. • Starring: Arsenio Hall, Donald F. Muhich, Monique Gabrielle, Lou Jacobi, Erica Yohn, Debby Davison, Rob Krausz, Phil Hartman, Corey Burton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Peter Horton, Griffin Dunne, Brian Ann Zoccola. • Music by: Ira Newborn.      A series of short sketches, most of which parody late-night television and the low-budget movies one often finds there. Other skits include a man being attacked by his apartment, a funeral hosted by classic comedians, and a teen-age boy's big night turning into a nightmare.
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Review:
I am a fan of both Dante and Landis' films (including "Twilight Zone: The Movie", another anthology film on which they collaborated) so my hopes were high. They were dashed pretty quickly but I soldiered on, both because I promised myself that I would always finish every film and because I figured that there would be at least one brilliant sketch by the law of averages, if nothing else. Well, this film broke the law of averages so that's something at least. I understand that it is a spiritual successor to "The Kentucky Fried Movie", which was likewise directed by Landis. I haven't seen that film but the fact that it was written by Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker means that I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and assume that it is funnier than this film. It pretty much has to be, really.
According to the opening credits, the film stars "lots of actors" – when one of the best jokes in the film comes in the opening credits and it is not even terribly funny, you know you're in trouble – but none of them are used well. They include Steve Forrest, Steve Guttenberg, Steve Allen and other people not named Steve such as Horton, his then wife Michelle Pfeiffer, Ed Begley, Jr., Ralph Bellamy, Carrie Fisher, Rosanna Arquette, Henry Silva, Robert Picardo, William Marshall, Marc McClure, Arsenio Hall, Lou Jacobi and David Alan Grier. I don't think that I have ever seen a worse film with a better cast, frankly. Dante's "mascot" Dick Miller appeared in a scene that was cut. I hope that he realised how lucky he was.
The major problem with the film is not that the ideas for the sketches were unfunny – quite the opposite, in many cases – but that they are almost all executed terribly. The jokes miss their target with about as often as the Stormtroopers from "Star Wars". The 1950s sci-fi film parody which gave the film its title could have been hilarious but it didn't even raise a smile. The Universal Monsters parody "Son of the Invisible Man" could have been hilarious but it barely raised a smile. The "Roast Your Loved Ones" segment could have been hilarious if they had hired better comedians. Steve Allen was the only one worth mentioning, let alone watching. At about eight minutes, that is one of the longest sketches and it sure as Hell feels like it.
Even some of the sketches which were less funny in their concept – such as "Murray in Videoland" in which a man is zapped into his television, "Two I.D.s" in which a young man's lack of consideration for the women that he dates is exposed by a compatibility analyser and "Titan Man" in which an embarrassed 17-year-old boy tries to buy condoms from his local pharmacy – could have provided a few good laughs but no such luck. It was not exactly up against stiff competition but my favourite sketch was the "Ripley's Believe It or Not" "In Search of..." parody "Bullshit or Not?" presented by Silva (playing himself) in which it was theorised that the Loch Ness Monster was in fact Jack the Ripper. I laughed out loud for the only time in the entire 84 minutes when I saw Nessie dressed as a Victorian gentleman and hiring the services of a prostitute before promptly murdering her. The film could have done with at least 20 more moments like that. "Blacks Without Soul" was probably the second most successful sketch, for what it's worth.
On the bright side, I did like the design of the film in several segments such as the pitch perfect recreation of the disparate styles of 1930s social guidance films, 1930s40s horror films and 1950s sci-fi films. As you would expect, many films are parodied or at least referenced in some way: "The Invisible Man", "Forbidden Planet", "Destination Moon", "King Kong", "Back to the Future", "Sophie's Choice", "Out of Africa", "Gandhi", "Ghostbusters", "Iceman", etc. That was probably a mistake since it is not a very good idea to remind people of good or downright brilliant films when they're watching your very, very bad one. I'd even take some of the bad ones that it references as they are probably more enjoyable than this.
Overall, this is a terrible waste of both comic potential and talent.
Review by GusF from the Internet Movie Database.
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