Moontrap

Oh boy, this one hurt. The box sounded good (Bruce Campbell, Walter Koeing, plus it won some kind of participation award, they don't just hand those things out!) but there wasn't a lick of sense made through the whole film. It was full of action and lots of stuff happens, but none of that stuff is tied together in any meaningful way.

The plot unfolds something like this: After ten mins of stock footage of the Apollo 11 Moon mission, sentient machine creatures try and fail to capture Apollo's Lunar Module. The robot creatures wait patiently for someone to return and repair the equipment, what their endgame is, no one knows...

Sounds simple, but there's more: Astronauts Grant (Koenig) and Tanner (Campbell) are on a non-disctipt mission that takes them near the Moon. While nearing the dark side of the Moon they discover a GIANT derelict spaceship and are ordered to check it out. (How people couldn't see something that size from earth, we'll never know.) They find a small football-shaped thing and a skeleton (that happen to float by while Grant is outside the ship) and bring them back to Earth. Once they're back on the planet, the "football" cracks open and a small robot jumps out. The newly hatched robot begins scavenging materials (including that skeleton) to build itself into a much bigger, much more menacing robot.

Ok, then what?: After the robot gets to a properly menacing size, it wreaks havoc for about 9 mins, and then is destroyed. That's when a second recon mission to the Moon is planned, and if you think I'm giving a bunch of stuff away; that's just the first 20 mins of the movie.


Reasons to watch: For a painful movie, there's a lot of action making it an entertaining painful. There's some pretty neat effects, and Bruce Campbell in his prime!

Movies it likely inspired: Promethius. There's actually a scene where the astronauts find an abandon structure on the Moon, and upon entering the structure, they take their helmets off. Just like a real astronaut would!

But did we like it: We were sort of split on this one, but our general take is that it's not the kind of movie you should attempt to watch alone. Get your self a space-loving watching buddy and prepare to find your enjoyment in everything but the plot!