Moontrap

Moontrap (1989)

When a space shuttle runs across an ancient space ship that is about to burn up in the atmosphere they stumble upon an alien technology. Returning it to Earth it activates and runs amok in the NASA facility. Tracing the ship back to the moon the government dusts off an old lunar lander and sends them on their way to investigate and check if there is any advanced technology to be found or if the aliens pose any threat. Once the astronauts are on the moon they find out rather quickly that the Earth is about to be invaded and that their mission unwittingly provided the only thing preventing the attack.

This is an interesting movie that I remember renting when I was younger. Now to be honest this isn’t a great movie. The story has several plot holes that aren’t ever resolved. The one that jumps to mind is how the aliens missed a rather big “resource” (don’t want to give anything away) until it was convenient for the plot to have them attack. Not only that but the narrative jumps around a bit that gives the plot a rather choppy feel to it. They talk about a moon mission and then suddenly are in orbit, that sort of thing. There is also a very cheesy love scene on the moon with some kind of space tent that had me both cringing and laughing at the same time. But then again if you are taking yourself too seriously when watching a flick like Moontrap you need to have your head examined.

Let me explain what I mean by that last sentence. To me this movie is more of a throwback to the dumb, but entertaining science fiction movies of the ‘50s and ‘60s. The science is questionable and the “bad guys” seem to only be relentless when it is convenient for the plot. Yeah it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but there is always something cool and interesting happening on the screen. Whether it is the nifty looking mechanical aliens or some well done special effects. Hell even the love scene with Walter Koenig has a sort of cringe worthy can’t look away appeal to it! Toss in a funny Star Trek reference early on from Koenig and a performance from genre favorite Bruce Campbell basically playing a version of Ash in space and you have yourself a dumb, but at times really fun movie.

Now I’ve kind of trashed the writing in the nicest way possible. But I do want to give the movie some props. The special effects are really very good for what I think had to be a fairly low budget affair. From the mechanical aliens making machines out of parts, to the scenes on the various spacecraft and the surface of the moon I was impressed. Sure there are odd things like firearms working in a vacuum where they possibly couldn’t and the fact that no one noticed a huge base and invasion force on the light side of the moon. But then again this is a movie with robot monsters from outer space, so what exactly should my expectations be?

Moontrap has some flaws and isn’t a perfect movie. But if you can track yourself down a copy I think it is worth at least one viewing and maybe if you are like me you might want to pop it in every few years for some cheesy fun.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer