Mass Movement Magazine

Mystery Science Theatre 3000 The Movie DVD (Mediumrare Entertainment)
It’s time, time to journey into a different dimension, a journey that once undertaken, will be never be forgotten, it’s time to experience ‘Mystery Science Theatre 3000 The Movie’. Apart from having one of the best titles ever, ‘Mystery Science Theatre…’ is also a lot of fun in a Saturday night pizza and beer sort of way, and lets be frank (not some dude named Frank, the straight down the line, truthful and sincere frank), who doesn’t like that kind of fun? I know I do, and I’m pretty sure that you do as well. Now that we’ve shared that with each other, bonded and experienced the touchy-feely stuff that sends a shiver of revulsion down my spine every single time I think about it, and established a communal sense of fun, it’s time that we (and by we, I of course mean me) moved on to the film. It’s centred around a fairly unique set-up, in that a mad scientist in the same vein as the old black and white Universal mad scientists, named Dr. Forrester has imprisoned an average sort of guy named Mike Nelson on a space station with a couple of robots in order to test his theories and experiments on mind control on him, because if he can control Mike, he can control the rest of humanity, and once he can do that, he can take over the world. In other words, he conforms to his stereotype and convention by chasing the ever elusive shared Mad Scientist and Tory obsession. Forrester does this through subjecting Mike and his robots to what he refers to as ‘the worst films of all time’, hoping to break down Mike’s will by exposing him to celluloid hell. The chosen film? ‘This Island Earth’, which is actually a pretty darn good Sci-Fi B-Movie, but I digress, back to Forrester’s machinations. Once the film, starts to roll, that’s where the fun begins, as the audience joins Mike and his ‘bots in the theatre audience to experience ‘This Island Earth’ together, as Mike and his companions add their singular, and often incredibly funny commentary to the film. It’s a film within a film, part hilarious DVD commentary, part Rocky Horror style audience participation and part sketch show that riffs on popular culture. Television shows and Science Fiction films and literature, ‘Mystery Science Theatre 3000…’is a funny, entertaining and light hearted pastiche of Sci-Fi that’ll keep you laughing until the last slice is eaten and the last beer drained. Will someone order me a pepperoni and a couple of cans of PBR? I want to watch the movie again… Tim Mass Movement