Spaceballs (1987)

Director: Mel Brooks

Cast: Mel Brooks, John Candy, Rick Moranis, Bill Pullman

Have I Seen it Before: Yeah. And I’ve never really cared for it. While the majority of the human race immediately proceeds to tune out of this website forever, let me say that I’ve always liked some of his other movies—chiefly Young Frankenstein (1974)—far more.

Did I Like It: But this time was going to be different! Perhaps I’m too precious about the science fiction genre to see it spoofed. I managed to even find flaws with Galaxy Quest (1999) when everyone else on the planet thinks it’s the best thing since 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). I’m fully willing to admit that I may be the problem, and if I can just get out of my own head, I’ll enjoy the film as much as you do.

No such luck.

The film just doesn’t work for me. Many of the film’s Brooks mocks in his work are timeless, even if they are very much part of the age they were made in. Every time “Spaceballs” by the Spinners is needle dropped in the third act, it is impossible to think of this film as anything other than something made in 1987.

Funny actors like Candy and Moranis are largely stiff (Candy more than Moranis) when they should be given free (or at least more free) reign to play to their heart’s content. This saps the film of many of the laughs it by all rights should have. I’m not saying the film is completely without laughs, but I didn’t laugh more than I did when we’re waylaid by the kind of exposition the serious versions of these films tend to insist on, and Moranis turns to the camera and barks, “Everyone got all that?”

Why do things not come together here? I think it can absolutely be a byproduct of the fact that Brooks has no real feelings for the Star Wars or Star Trek (or any of the other sprawling sci-fi epics of the age). He loved the James Whale Universal Horror films. That’s why Frankenstein is his best film. He loved Hitchcock movies, that’s why High Anxiety (1977) connects. He loves westerns. Hence, Blazing Saddles (1974)*. Here, I imagine that his kid loves sci-fi movies, and he has a mild fascination with them. That’s it. And so, the experience here is far more hollow then many of us want to admit.

*I’ve said it in other reviews, but no matter what my feelings about this film are, the fact that he was able to do both Frankenstein and Saddles within a year makes him an unassailable legend.

Remembering Gene Wilder (2023)

Director: Ron Frank

Cast: Gene Wilder, Alan Alda, Carol Kane, Mel Brooks

Have I Seen It Before: Nope. Even went to go see it in the theater, and wouldn’t you know it? It gets released on Netflix the very next day. So there I am, sitting in the theater, surrounded by geriatrics occasionally muttering, “Oh, well, he’s dead now.” If I really wanted to do that, I’d just go to work. I love you, movie theaters, but you test me sometimes, ya know?

Did I Like It: The film is very entertaining, but that’s because Wilder himself was a genius. The film is filled with clips of his greatest moments. That’ll make a 90-minute runtime rush by. It also made me want to re-watch The Producers (1967), Young Frankenstein (1974), and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). I also spent more than a few minutes trying to track down copies of The Frisco Kid (1979), The World’s Greatest Lover (1977), and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (1975). I’m probably willing to concede that means the film hits its target, but again that is because it is being propped up by other films.

But this is ultimately a competent, but not exceptional documentary. Talking heads abound. Mel Brooks is a delight as always, Harry Connick, Jr. doesn’t really have much to say. There is plenty of very good narration from Wilder himself, but all of it is taken from the audiobook of Wilder’s memoir, Kiss Me Like A Stranger… Which I’ve already listened to. The only sections where the film tries to go beyond the territory of a DVD special feature is when it focuses on Wilder’s final years and his struggle with Alzheimer’s. It’s a deeper look, but somehow manages to be both intimate to the point of being intrusive and reticent (perhaps rightly so) to say anything revelatory about the disease or people’s experience with it. Those sections are unusual, but they have too much of a home video quality to recommend.

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Director: Mel Brooks

Cast: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Mel Brooks, Madeline Kahn

Have I Seen It Before: Yes? I’m pretty sure I have. I never liked it as much as Young Frankenstein (1974). Westerns were never central to me, and it always seemed like my father liked it a bit too much, if you know what I mean. That hardly covers the times when other family members would try to parenthetically try to quote the film and ruin Johnny Carino’s for everyone.

Maybe I only saw it on cable…

Did I Like It: The prospect of watching the movie with an audience in the year of our Lord 2024 presents are certain amount of dread, and yet I serve at the altar of the cinema. Indeed, the crowd was at least somewhat made up of people who bemoan that such a movie could never be made today, like an infant who wants to watch cartoons right now.

They all laughed a little too loud at the wrong spots—again, if you catch my meaning—but the mythology around the film makes it seem like those people are the ones who really appreciate the film, but the truth is that the film is making fun of them—nay, mocking them mercilessly—and they don’t know any better. The comedy isn’t in the idea of a black sheriff (Little, a paragon of perfectly calibrated charisma) coming to defend the town, it’s in the townspeople who would rather be terrorized by the goons at the employ of Hedley Lamar (Harvey Korman) than have a sheriff. Bart is—sometimes literally; I’m not sure what movie the rest of you are watching—Bugs Bunny, harnessing chaos from rubes to semi-heroic ends.

Speaking of chaos and the essential Bugs-ness of the proceedings… The final minutes of the film are undeniably the most enjoyable section of the film is when things completely fall apart and the movie is a real problem for the safety and security of the Warner Bros. lot. You can say a lot about Warners, but there really aren’t any studios that are willing to let filmmakers mock them while on their dime. The few that do experiment in the idea are just mimicking the shield.

History of the World, Part I (1981)

Director: Mel Brooks

Cast: Mel Brooks, Gregory Hines, Madeline Kahn, Orson Welles

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: I usually feel the compulsion to add a few disclaimers as I launch in to any review of a Mel Brooks movie. I’m going to be hard pressed to say he’s got a better movie than Young Frankenstein (1974), and try as I might I’ll never quite care for Spaceballs (1987) if for no other reason than I never really believe that Brooks himself has any interest in making the movie.

Additionally, I can’t help but qualify what is to come and say that I’m almost always convinced that a sketch comedy film can’t help but broadcast to it s viewer that not one single idea contained within is funny enough to support a movie of its own.

So, it’s a bit of a surprise to me that on this viewing, History kind of works. Sure, there are a more than a few dated stabs at humor that ring not only as unfunny, but hateful, but there are also more than few laughs that still work.

Madeline Kahn may be tragically underused in the proceedings, but les we forget that any movie featuring Kahn should probably get a positive review. Without her, Clue (1985) would be a vaguely embarrassing amalgamation of an otherwise engaging cast.

And we’ve got Orson Welles offering narration? Maybe this all can’t overcome the limits of a feature-length series of sketches. Even Monty Python were bringing material from their television work when they worked with the genre, and Meaning of Life has some kind of loose structure keeping things as one idea worth more of our time. Maybe it all feels like Brooks is vaguely embarrassed by each idea, but never quite enough to actually abandon them. But if we’ve got Welles’ voice as our constant throughout the scrambling, it’s safe to say this is probably the classiest examples of the genre.

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Director: Mel Brooks

Cast: Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman

Have I Seen it Before: Indeed. It was the movie my wife and I had watched on our first date, although I had seen it several times before then. To the best of my memory, I don’t think I’ve watched it since then.

Which is so weird I can’t even begin to wrap my head around it.

Did I Like It: I’m not even sure where to begin this review. This is by far the best movie Mel Brooks ever made. I’ve never been able to get over myself long enough to get into Blazing Saddles (1974)*, and while you might think I would be a devotee of Spaceballs (1987), but I’m not. Brooks’ swing for the sci-fi has two major problems in my mind. First, there’s never a moment of the film that doesn’t groan from the fact that it was clearly made in the `80s. Second, I never once get the sense that Brooks is terribly fond of any science fiction movie. Thus, the spoofing never rises above a joke factory, and Spaceballs never becomes a legitimate science fiction movie in any measurable way. All of Brooks’ films are funny**, only a few of them are special.

It might seem like I am spending an inordinate amount of time in my Young Frankenstein review talking about how much I don’t like Spaceballs, but the contrast is key. Every moment of Young Frankenstein feels like it would fit in quite well with the upper echelon (read: the early ones) of Universal monster movies. This has James Whale written all over it, and I get the sense that Brooks enjoyed a James Whale movie once or twice in his life. This cast is perfect. You know it is perfect because it might very well be possible that Madeline Khan is the weak link in the chain, which means it may have the greatest cast ever assembled for a film, as Madeline Khan could keep otherwise underwhelming films aloft through sheer force of will and personality.

*Despite my relative antipathy toward his western opus, it’s hard to fault somebody for making such an indelible one-two punch in film comedy inside of one 12-month period.

**Well, not you Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995). Not all films are create equally, if I’m being honest.