Simply A Masterpiece

Must See Movie...

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

MOONTRAP has the perfect genre cast: THE EVIL DEAD's Bruce Campbell and STAR TREK's Walter Koenig team up as a pair of astronauts who are busy investigating a robotic mystery on the surface of the Moon. That set-up sounds great, but in reality the execution turns out to be quite pedestrian; this has the look and feel of an Albert Pyun movie, say, rather than a 'proper', well made movie.It looks cheap and it is. About the only thing MOONTRAP has going for it are a series of robotic creations which are pretty good in a cheesy '80s kind of way. The animation is fairly decent, with some scenes bringing to mind the likes of ROBOCOP, but it's the story that also lets this one down. There's little to no scope here, just characters wandering around aimlessly and fighting repetitively.Campbell is given short shrift by the script and that awful haircut of his doesn't help. Koenig is, somewhat hilariously, playing a youthful hero type (his character appears to be at least 20 years younger than the actor), the sort of guy who gets the girl at the end, which is a little weird and unworkable. But really, there's not a lot going on here, especially for fans of the sci-fi genre who will have seen it all before.

Walter Koenig takes on a starring role as Col. Jason Grant, who, along with his co-pilot Ray Tanner(played by Bruce Campbell) is manning a routine space shuttle flight sometime in the 1990's when they encounter a derelict alien spaceship containing an ancient humanoid corpse and a self-contained cylinder that are brought back to Earth where they cause a deadly incident that convinces authorities to send Grant & Tanner back to the moon to investigate, where they encounter a sinister alien power determined to invade the Earth... Campy film has two appealing performances by Koenig and Campbell, but an unoriginal story that fizzles out by the simplistic climax. Not bad really, though the music score is unmemorable, and plot reminiscent of the film "Lifeforce".

NASA astronauts Koenig and Campbell encounter damaged alien space craft, with a torn hull, while orbiting moon in their shuttle, Chamelot. Discovering a mysterious self-contained alloy shell inside the ship, Koenig also finds the skeletal remains of an actual humanoid, carbon dated at 14000 years old! The shell actually houses a hostile "robotic species" with an incredible intellect..as we soon learn, it uses "spare parts" from whatever junk is lying around to create a body for which will allow it to move about. Returning to Cape Canaveral, the robotic monster goes on a rampage, laser blasting military personnel and anyone else, despite peaceful attempts to see what it wants. After finally "subduing" the machine, the government sends Koenig and Campbell to the moon to see if there's in fact any other signs of life which might exist. Once there, Koenig and Campbell do find the remains of a once thriving alien civilization, skeletons, weapons, and buildings, reduced to rubble or buried in the dust. What Koenig and his colleagues do not realize is that the species which left the humanoids dead so long ago have waited for the right kind of parts needed to juice up their ship, an attack on Earth imminent. It'll be up to Koenig to stop them or else. Koenig and Campbell also find an actual female of that civilization alive, kept sealed in a chamber from harm. Getting off the moon will be especially difficult when they find their lunar lander missing, commandeered by the robotoid species.Plenty of intriguing ideas and admirable use of limited resources, Moontrap is a fine example of creating something out of nothing. The robot monsters are rather nifty little creations, not to mention you get action on the moon and within an alien space craft. Impressive recreations of various equipment associated with NASA. How the filmmakers accomplished so much with so little is a testament to what you can do with ingenuity and creativity.Nice star vehicle for Star Trek's Walter Koenig(..which was initially what drew me to it in the video rental store as a kid)with able support from wise-cracking Bruce Campbell as his partner.I imagine there are those who could balk at certain aspects regarding flawed science, such as the scenes on the moon where bodies and the robot creatures move fast where gravity is a problem. The whole scenario involving 14000 year old human life on the moon might cause eye-rolling as well, but I thought it was certainly original, which is something in itself. Also rather creepy are the robot monsters which not only use junk parts from whatever metal might be lying around, but from actual human beings as well! You can actually see such things as a spine, various bones(..even the head of a victim!), and other human parts melded in with mechanical pieces. The shell opens and a robot head appears, with thin, strand-like tentacles which reach for the parts necessary for building it a body.A criticism early on one might could use is how the first robot monster withstands the bullet-fire of a military arsenal despite the fact that it basically used metal in a laboratory..highly doubtful that such material, for the creation of legs and arms with claws, could remain insusceptible to a constant barrage of gunfire. Leigh Lombardi is the humanoid, Mera, discovered by the astronauts in the chamber on the moon.

I had me some fun revisiting MOONTRAP the other day. Had not seen it since my teen-days. A small but ambitious sci-fi/horror film about a race of robotic aliens hidden on the dark side of the moon, occupying themselves since ages with building a giant mother-ship - that thing was huge! - to invade earth and using human bodies for spare-parts (VIRUS with Jamie Lee Curtis, anyone?). A weird film altogether with a lot of great and some not-so-great special effects, including nifty looking miniatures. Starring none less than Walter Koenig (from the original STAR TREK series) and Bruce Campbell, who's acting his way very inappropriately through this film, like if he was convinced he was doing another EVIL DEAD film. Can't really call this a great film, with its pacing problems and illogical goings-on, but it was a blast seeing it again.