This is quite possibly one of the most awful movies of all time. In fact, it’s so bad that at times, it ventures into being hilariously funny, even if you’re laughing at how horrible it is.
“The Ice Pirates” is set in the distant future, where evil “Templars” control the only source of water in the galaxy. However, Jason (Robert Urich) and his band of “ice pirates” hijack space freighters and steal their water. Along the way, he meets up with a princess who is searching for her father. This merry band spends a good portion of the film escaping predicaments, fleeing pursuers and looking for the fabled “seventh world,” a mythical water planet.
Mason: Yeah, I think Kevin Costner lives there.
Josh: Mythical water planet? Ice pirates? What the hell is going on here? I saw the movie twice, and I’m still wondering what the movie was about, exactly.
So, after lots of cheesy special effects, several spaceship chases, swashbuckling swordplay — swords in space? — and a weird time-warp montage, our heroes manage to save the day.
The special effects were probably one of the worst things about this movie: bad laser beams, robots that were obviously people in rubber suits and the gawd-awful Space Herpe, which looked like a festering sausage with a mouth.
Mason: I had no idea what purpose the Space Herpe served in the movie, other than completely grossing me out.
Josh: I had trouble keeping my lunch down after seeing that one. Especially when it came out of the Thanksgiving turkey. Blecch.
All in all, this movie is probably one of those films that you remember as kicking butt when you were a kid. But see it now, and you’ll be slapping your head in disgust and laughing at the awful spectacle that is “The Ice Pirates.”
Mason: My favorite part was the jive-talkin’ pimp
robot.
Josh: I’d have to say that I really liked the time-warp sequence, where everybody was moving really slowly and then zipping around getting older and growing beards and giant white afros.
Rent this film at your own risk.