rouge one.

A posh 'n' pouty Brit-chick leads a ragtag group of mismatched space warriors against an evil galactic Empire complete with planet devastating super weapon?

Oh Felicity, you fill me with electricity...

 Sounds familiar.

Starcrash (AKA The Adventures of Stella Star, Female Space Invaders, Scontri stellari oltre la terza dimensione, Star Battle Encounters 1979)
Dir: Luigi Cozzi.
Cast: The lovely Caroline Munro, David Hasselhoff, Dame Christopher Plummer, Judd Hamilton, Joe Spinell, Robert Tessier, Nadia Cassini and Mr. Marjoe Gortner.

"By sunset I'll be the new emperor. And I'll be the master of the whole universe!"

Somewhere in the Crayola hued reaches of deepest space and sometime in the far flung, leather-clad future a huge space cruiser constructed entirely from primary coloured Lego bricks is searching for the evil Count Zarth An's (the legendary Spinell) secret base. 

The search is going well, perhaps too well or just as the crew pinpoint Zarths lair the ship is attacked by a giant red lava lamp that strikes with such ferocity that the captain can only manage to launch three (yogurt pot)  lifeboats before the it's totally destroyed.


Yikes.

Meanwhile just up the road (take a left on Warp Drive and straight thru' the roundabout), sexy space smuggler Stella Star (every man's fantasy Munro) and her gerbil faced navigator Akton ('B'-movie god and once the world's youngest ordained preacher, Gortner) are in the middle of an exciting space chase, being, as they are, pursued across the cosmos by Space Police's finest, officer Jeff Thor (shiny pated teevee and film stalwart Tessier) and the cock headed robot Elle (ex Mr. Munro and moustachioed movie producer Hamilton).

Their crime?

A trumped up charge of copyright infringement. 

"Thor? I'm in thucking agony!"

Leaping in and out of hyperspace like bed hopping lemmings, Stella is about to evade Thor for good when she picks up a distress signal emanating from one of the escape pods from the previous scene and being an all round good egg, Stella decides to sexily (and seductively) spacewalk across to the pod to check for survivors.

From the battle that is, not the 1970's Terry Nation scripted, Ian McCulloch starring TeeVee show.

Aboard is a lone astronaut, his mind irreversibly damaged by the pound shop lava lamp/lens flare thingy and his body left limp and lifeless.

And covered in a thin layer of egg and sweat.

Just as our heroes are deciding whether to leave him be or nick his wallet Thor's top gun fighter squad surround their ship leaving luscious Stella trapped.

Roughly grabbed by the filth our pneumatic nymph is taken into custody.

Oh no....it's the Ninkey Nonk!"

Left for hours in a stinky cell without fresh running water, clean bedding or even a knock-off  freeview box, Stella is finally led to the mysterious 'space court' (which appears to be run by the monster from the 1956 version of Invaders from Mars) and quickly charged with smuggling, dangerous driving and the use of a body double in the Hammer hit Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter.

The latter a crime so great (seeing as it meant that many young boys in the early 80's where tricked into firing their virgin load over some unknown actress rather than Munro herself) that the only sentence that could possibly come close is life imprisonment in the Chuckle Brothers Lemonade mines, wearing nothing but a skimpy black leather bikini whilst carrying glowing radium rods to power the nuclear furnace whilst sweating 

A lot.

Tell me again why this movie is popular among 14 yr old boys?

 

Within minutes of arriving at her new home Stella quickly becomes bored with lugging all those highly dangerous radioactive isotopes about whilst provocatively showing her ample cleavage so decides to incite a prison riot and escape.

Everything goes according to plan (shit explodes, Stella jiggles a wee bit, leather-clad extras fall over - you know the drill) but just as she's about to steal a prison ship and rocket to freedom would you believe that a gigantic gold winged dildo lands directly in front of her.

A dildo piloted by the glam-rock robed Emperor of all space himself (Plummer, caked in eyeliner, pissed as an old Jake, stinking of shame and obviously desperate to pay off his ex-wife, poor sod) the exalted Lord Toby Groom.

But why is the galaxies most powerful man bumming around in a huge sex toy stalking a fetish geared British actress you may ask.

Well, it appears that Emperor Groom's only son, Simon was serving aboard the Lego space cruiser when it went down and he is willing to grant Stella and her pal a pardon for their smuggling racket (and for blowing up the prison killing God knows how many guards) if they can find and safely return him to his oh so worried dad.

The only thing he insists on is that Thor and Elle accompany them on their mission.

Will Stella accept? 

Hell yeah!

Spot the ball.

Using a data extract from the recovered space pod - and the saliva of the by now dribbly vegetable like survivor - Stella (within minutes I mean c'mon it's a fairly short movie) discovers the crash site of not only the two remaining space pods but also the lost spaceship itself. 

Result.

First stop.....planet of the bareback riding Amazon women!

Or more accurately the beach of the bareback riding Amazon women.

Oh well at least it wasn't a quarry.

Upon arrival Stella and co. are greeted by a group of benign female warriors who escort our merry band to the Amazon Palace for tea and biscuits with their queen, the clap riddled yet still strangely attractive Corelia Frostrup (a fantastic performance from the dirty as fuck and curvy of arsed pop princess Cassini, best known for that sensational Euro-hit A chi la do stasera).

Everything is going swimmingly until about halfway thru' the second packet of custard creams when a tipsy Corelia realizes that she's encountered the erstwhile Elle before.

Yup he once gave her a full body cavity search after pulling her over for speeding.


The dirty domed pervert.

Been a woman and obviously not prone to overreacting, our quaint queen pal decides to simply shoot Elle in the face before taking Stella prisoner.

Cue twelve tissues worth of slo-mo girl on girl karate action set to a lush John Barry score.

Boiled onions.

Stella fights - and jiggles - valiantly but is soon overpowered by the gorgeous group of sweaty, leather clad Amazons who drag our hot heroine over to the hideous 'mind bending machine' for a quick bout of brain draining disco torture.

After a few minutes of brightly lit grimacing and shapely leg wobbling Stella is rescued by a fully recovered Elle who appears from behind the fridge, subduing the angryAmazons with his penile like fingers and cock shaped head before grabbing Stella and making a break for freedom.

Huzzah!

After a halfhearted runaround across the golden sands of Tenby's major tourist beach, Stella and Elle are fairly shocked (and maybe a tiny bit surprised) to come across a giant she-robot (with huge shiny metal breasts and massive silver rivets for nipples) blocking their escape.

Luckily this allows them to take part in a high speed chase scene that would do Benny Hill proud before being rescued by Akton who, in a fantastic show of his impeccable navigating skills defeats the She-Bot.

Okay, he crashes into it and knocks it over.

Happy now?

Put it in me!

Thinking that the mission can't get any worse (or the movie any more comical) our heroes press on to planet number two, the chillily named Frozonian, a barren world covered by ice, snow and more ice. 

Drawing the short straw -  again - Stella and Elle venture out into the cold, polystyrene filled landscape and within minutes have stumbled across a couple of deep frozen bodies and a burnt out Fiat Uno.

Whilst all this is going on, Thor -  deciding to add a wee bit of much needed jeopardy to the movie has become a badman - violently bashing Akton on the head he then takes control of the ship. 

And your mums heart.

His cunning plan is to leave the dynamic duo on the planet's frozen surface and join forces with Count Zarth An.

To be honest we should of guessed Thor would turn out to be a traitor seeing that in the entire cast of fairly attractive actors, he's the only pug-faced, green skinned baldy amongst them.

Luckily for Stella, Elle also has a cunning plan (it's always worrying when the cock-headed robot is the brainiest member of the cast) and persuades Stella to lie on top of him in the snow as he uses his 'circuits' to keep her warm.

Would this ever work on a lady in real life? 

Write in and let me know.

Snow in mah mooth.

Whilst all this backstabbing and skulduggery is going on Thor seems to have forgotten about Akton, who awakes in the nick of time to zap Thor before opening the doors allowing a very stiff Elle and an even stiffer Stella back on board. 

As if that wasn't enough, it's only due to Akton's hitherto unmentioned 'special  skills'  that they're able to fully revive Stella without any - noticeable -damage. 

You see, Akton knew this would happen all along because he can see into the future!


Who knew?

Well he did obviously.

Scarily for a bubble permed second fiddle smuggler Akton has shit loads of useful (almost super) powers like this that only ever appear when the script calls for them.

I mean he can fire sine waves from his fingers, deflect death rays, thaw out bikini clad space chicks and wield a light saber.

You almost get the feeling that a movie about him and the novelty cockbot having amusing adventures would possibly have made more cash at the box office and that poor Stella was only added at the last minute to keep the dads (and teen boys) happy.

Tho' if Mr. Cozzi is reading this I do have a script in the works about that very subject and let's be honest, it can't be any worse than the ill-conceived  Starcrash sequel Escape from Galaxy 3.

Christopher Plummer: Camper than Jesus.

Anyway, back to the plot.

With Thor banged up in a cell our terrific trio carry on with the mission and head towards the mysterious 'planet number three', know in space circles as 'the most dangerous planet in the universe' and home of the previously (un)seen lens flare/lava lamp/shoddy effects beasts, which - unsurprisingly - violently attacks the ship in what we hope will be a nerve shredding action scene like no other. 

Unfortunately tho' it isn't seeing as the crew appear to just hide behind Akton's hair for protection whilst he quickly flies thru' the monsters and lands right next to the remaining pod.

Elle and Stella head out to investigate (again) and surprise, surprise are attacked by the indigenous population, which this time is a hairy arsed group of gypsy-like cavemen determined to use Stella for 'entertainment' purposes.

As is the way by now, Elle is once again disabled (by the cavemen obviously not in a car sticker way) as Stella is dragged away by her hair.

Space tramp bum fun ahoy.

Or not.

You see just as the cavemen are about to have their wicked way with Stella, who should turn up but Prince Simon himself.

And played by the melted cheese chested Lord David of Hasselhoff no less.

Appearing from nowhere he starts shooting the hairy badmen with 'laser beams' from his glittery 'energy mask' (it's all techno-bollocks so try not to think to hard) before being joined by Akton and his (nothing like the ones in Star Wars) lightsaber.

The hunky heroes make short work of the weirdy beardies and Simon, obviously hyped up on all this killing decides to destroy Zarth An's lava lamp monster making machine too.

But just as he prepares to strike, the evil Count (boo! hiss!) finally arrives, flanked by a squad of leather clad, gimp masked Italians and two sword fighting, bin headed stop-motion robots.

Five fingers never touched the sides.

Zarth explains that the whole rescue mission was a cunning plan to lure the Emperor to his secret base and blow him up.

Forever! 

The swine.

As with all good villains, after explaining his entire plan, Zarth leaves the two robots to guard the prisoners whilst he prepares for battle.

Do you think our heroes can escape and warn Captain Von Trapp?

Noticing that Prince Simon's hair is much curlier and more bouffant than his own and therefore easier to hide in, Akton decides to give his pals a chance to escape by challenging the robots to a duel, unfortunately he's badly matted onto the scene giving the stop-motion metal men an unfair advantage which ends up with Akton getting stabbed up the shitter and left for dead.

Hmmm....he obviously didn't see that coming.

Or did he?

Stella and Simon, making no attempt to aid their pal quickly escape in Zarth's space taxi but are too late to stop him beginning the countdown to destroy the planet.

Things are looking grim for our heroes as the clock ticks away.


But not as grim as it does for the audience.

Just as the countdown approaches zero (as is always the way) the Emperor appears from nowhere and decides to use his 'ray for stopping time', a handy little device that allows everyone to escape before the planet explodes.

Surely this would have been useful earlier?

I mean he could have stopped time as soon as Zarth's base was found.

Or maybe launch a ship and given him a kicking.

Or even stopped time as soon as he discovered his son's ship crashed.

At the very least you think he'd of used it when he was doing his Emperor exams.

Visiting his local Debenhams lingerie department perhaps?

The possibilities are endless.

 
Assuming that everyone died when the planet went boom, Zarth gets back to the everyday task of running his evil legion, busying himself by planning his next dastardly move.

Imagine his reaction then when from out of the blue a squadron of Imperial fighters appear in the heavens and proceed to drop big golden dildo shaped torpedoes thru' the massive bay windows of Zarth's base before spewing forth a gaggle of laser wielding soldiers dressed head to toe in Bacofoil.


Fair play to Spinell for managing to look convincingly angry during this scene, if it were me I'd be on the floor pissing myself.

You can tell that we're rapidly approaching the movies climax as a massive sparkler and smoke bomb battle ensues between the gold boiler suited good guys and the rubberized fetish geared bad men as brightly coloured toy spaceships from the early learning centre zoom about outside shooting at each other in a battle to the death.

It comes as a wee bit of a shock to the Emperor (and to us) then when his crack troops are utterly defeated.

Arse.

Pausing for a few seconds in an attempt to showcase his considerably acting talents - whilst mourningy the loss of his favourite dance troupe, the Emperor comes up with an audacious plan. 

He proposes to use the 'Starcrash'.

Not you.

As impressive and complicated as this sounds, it actually just involves crashing some huge spaceship into the Count's space fortress.

Stella is the obvious choice for the mission.....but will it work?


And let's be honest here do we really care?

 

Made two years after the release of Star Wars, Shlock Meister supreme Luigi Cozzi's 'homage' makes up for all it's short comings (of which there are many) by having the fantastic idea of putting British movie Goddess Caroline Munro in a leather bikini with matching thigh boots and covering her in baby oil. 

This in itself is more than enough for 93 minutes of entertainment, everything else is a bonus.

And what of everything else? 

The model effects are fabulously inept, plus seeing as all the space ships appear to be made totally from the sprues from model kits (you know, the bits of plastic the parts come attached to) you and your friends can play spot the Airfix kit whilst admiring the dayglo painted backgrounds.

Space: 1999 Eagles, big truck wheels, X-Wings.....they're all here shoddily glued together to take part in a variety of disco coloured clunkily edited space battles just for you.

Paddington.

As for the acting on show, Marjoe Gortner is all amusing facial ticks and a hairstyle that gives him the look of an unholy cross between Syd Little and a large pubic bush (albeit one with tiny rodent like teeth), Christopher Plummer looks junked to the eyeballs and frankly horrified, clad as he is in silver foil, thigh boots and light blue eyeliner whilst big screen bad guy Joe Spinell sweats like Donald Trump in a girls dormitory whilst shouting the word "FOREVER!" at the end of every line.

And the human car crash that is the Hoff?

Less chubby, self important and considerably less pissed than normal, his mouth is constantly agape like a whoring goldfish ready to accommodate the next eager punter you can actually see him thinking "Fuck you Harrison Ford! this is how you do space acting!" and imagining a world of Starcrash sequels and Simon action figures.

It says a lot for him that the two stop motion robots have much more charisma - and a better range - than he does.

Tho' the giant lady robot's huge metal breasts are nothing compared to his ever expanding man ones.

As a bizarre aside, for years Starcrash was only available - in it's full 93 minute version - on home video in France which meant that to acquire it I had to have sex with a French girl named Cécile Fournier.


Twice.



Come to think of it I really should have waited.


Or at least gotten a pen pal.