Subject: Review: Spaceman (1998)

From: Jon Popick <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 20:21:42 -0000

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Plenty of people have never heard of The Onion, a satirical weekly newspaper
out of Madison, Wisconsin, and even those who regularly read the hysterical
tabloid may not know about Scott Dikkers.  He was an early contributor to
The Onion and eventually became the newspaper's head writer, in addition to
co-authoring the best-selling spin-off book, Our Dumb Century.

Back in 1997, Dikkers wrote, directed and produced an ultra-low-budget
B-movie called Spaceman, which is just now being released on video before a
television debut on the Sci-Fi Channel later this year.  The film is a
throwback to the cheesy sci-fi fare that you'd find at a '50s matinee, but
with somewhat of a modern twist.  Imagine taking a killer alien from one of
those films and plopping him in modern-day Chicago, and you've got a pretty
good idea of what Spaceman is all about.

The film opens with a brief scene that shows a four-year-old boy being
abducted by a spaceship before flashing forward 25 years, where the boy has
returned to Earth as an adult (David Ghilardi).  Spaceman works at a
supermarket, where he's a model employee who calls the manager "Commander"
while everyone laughs behind his back.  Okay, so he wears a spacesuit to
work and appears a bit robotic, but sheesh - they could cut him some slack.

That part of Spaceman seemed promising, and a little like Office Space, but
the story takes a nosedive when Spaceman is fired for apprehending a
shoplifter.  He spends the rest of the film looking for someone to command
him in fights to the death (which is, apparently, what he used to do back
home), while being chased by a pair of FBI agents who seem just as obsessed
with slicing and dicing aliens as the Robert Stack-voiced FBI character in
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America was preoccupied with deep anal exams.  He
also learns about love when he falls for an Earth babe - his neighbor Sue
(Deborah King).

Ghilardi's performance is purposely one-note, and he comes off as a funny
cousin to Servotron lead singer Z4-OBX.  The rest of the cast didn't do much
for me, and since all the actors appeared to be approximately the same age,
Spaceman felt just like a student film (having a meager $50,000 budget
probably didn't help, either).  The film is poorly lit, very badly dubbed
and parts look like they were shot through wax paper.  Spaceman is a little
like Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Orgazmo - another film that showed some
potential but, for the most part, was pretty unwatchable  Unlike Orgazmo's
over-the-top gross-out gags, Spaceman is full of deadpan humor, with a
serious emphasis on the word "dead."

1:32 - Not Rated but includes adult language and violence

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