"The Ice Pirates" is a pretty engaging off kilter comedy spoofing both space adventures and swashbucklers, with enough verbal and visual gags to make it pleasant, and impossible to truly dislike. It's clearly not aiming to be something particularly memorable or special, just an irreverent diversion on lazy afternoons. It's played enthusiastically by an interestingly chosen cast that helps it to have a cult-film sort of appeal. The script, co-written by director Stewart Raffill ("The Philadelphia Experiment", "Mac and Me"), has a muddled story but a disarming sense of humour. Not all of its scenes work that well, but it's sure to have its viewers smiling if not laughing out loud.

TV stars Robert Urich ('Vega$') and Mary Crosby ('Dallas') headline a cast also featuring Michael D. Roberts, Ron Perlman, Anjelica Huston, John Matuszak, Bruce Vilanch, and a too briefly seen John Carradine. Urich plays Jason, the leader of the title characters in a galaxy where water is the most precious commodity. After their latest escapades, they're captured by the baddies - dubbed Templars - and then acquired by princess Karina (Crosby) so they can help in a quest to find her father.

Reasonably good visuals and a decent score by Bruce Broughton help in the enjoyment of this little bit of escapism, as well as a fairly clever finale taking place inside a time warp where our heroes steadily age while fighting the bad guys. There are also a variety of interesting and likable characters, human, robot, and otherwise, with actors and actresses such as Natalie Core, Jeremy West, Alan Caillou, Marcia Lewis, Robert Symonds, Rockne Tarkington, Ian Abercrombie, Hank Worden, and Carmen Filpi in various small roles. Perlman is particularly funny as one of Jasons' comrades, while Huston gets to be a total badass.

This would make a decent double feature with another off the wall cult genre effort from the same year, "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension".

Six out of 10.

"Ice Pirates" is one of those strange, twisted sf epics farmed out in the '80s after the success of "Star Wars" by people with a better sense of humor and more imagination than Lucas (he ripped off every Nordic legend and cultural/subconscious stereotype in the book, people!)but far less money (I know, "Star Wars" was a low budget flick). With the "Ice Pirates", it shows. And it's great. Without much moolah for special effects the writers had to, well, write, and the barrage of one liners/tete a tete/general tomfoolery make the "Ice Pirates" a good movie to watch over and over. Plus, the FX are pretty good for looking pretty cheap. Other notables:

Ron Perlman- my favorite bit actor, he's very... annoying in this film. And he lisps. And his hand gets chopped off. Which is worth catching. Along with the rest of the cast - wow!

The pimpbot.

The castrato factory that looks like the bottling plant where Laverne and Shirley work.

Michael D. Roberts reminds me of Richard Pryor... but Robert Urich's no Gene Wilder.

The sheer amount of STUFF that gets packed onto the screen... "Trespassers will be violated"!? A disembodied head!? Ninja Fightin' Robots!? And of course the space herpes. And the unicorns. And the very un-PG double entendres.

The creeping sense that the writers know more about classic sf than they're letting on, what with the "7th World" (duh...), the greenhouse palace, the playing around with time warps, and the seamless dropping of ideas and references.

Favorite bit: Sweetwater and Lankey Nibbs. Love that name! Love that chair!

For lovers of Star Wars (ep.4 - 6) this is a must see.They have borrowed so many lines and ideas it's insane, then they have intertwined great comedy. The effects are poor, the aliens and robots, a joke, and the enemies appear to be cast offs off Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I always thought Spaceballs was the best Star Wars spoof movie; I was wrong, this is better. Give it a try, its bonkers.