The Ice Pirates

The amiable sci-fi spoof The Ice Pirates has earned a small but vocal cadre of admirers thanks to its go-for-broke gags and a healthy disrespect for outer space epics like the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises. An atypically goofy Robert Urich stars as the leader of a band of space pirates who kidnap a princess (Mary Crosby of Dallas fame), and then join her quest to find a mythical planet that can solve the universe’s water shortage. A completely game (shameless?) cast (which includes Anjelica Huston in fetching leather gear, Ron Perlman, John Matuszak, and fantastic film icon John Carradine) and Stewart (The Philadelphia Experiment) and Raffill’s breezy direction help sell the funniest bits (most notably, the notorious "space herpy" scene, and the frantic time-warp finale) and make the more leaden jokes palatable. --Paul Gaita