TITLE: Assignment Outer Space

RELEASE DATE
:  1960

RATED: Unrated

REVIEWED BY
:  The DarkSider
THE PLOT: Being a young reporter is often a trying job. Often you may get sent to the local town fair to cover the pig-judging contest. Or perhaps out to the local department store's grand opening. In space, it all relates to the same old crap only with less gravity.

Our tale begins on a spaceship some time in the future. A spoken narration (uh oh) informs us that that they are on a mission to get to a space station. After the film pans away from what seems to be a Lite Brite screen, we meet up with the captain of the ship named Al. He is in some kind of deep hibernation, much like the audience watching this film.

Anyhow, Al wakes up and begins to sloooooooowly move towards the ship's control room. He radios in and before you know it his bunkmate Archie is up. They blab away in a bit of plot exposition about the reporter on board (who apparently doubles as the narrator) named Ray. Ray wakes up looking a little too much like the Michelin Man in his outfit.

Immediately Al gives him a "you reporter folk ain't welcome in these parts" vibe. With that, Al kicks his behind out into deep space. Ray floats away towards the space station. All the while he whines about how scary it is which made me think he dropped a few asteroids in his pants on the way there. After a few minutes of very bad special effects, Ray arrives at the space station.

I should make mention now that everyone in the movie has a number on their back. I guess they all go under that number if need be. The best part about the uniform number issue is the fact it looks like they're formed with white tape right before shooting.

Anyhow, Ray meets up with ship's commander George who gives him a bit of a cold shoulder vibe. Ray, who apparently isn't a fan of the getting off on the right foot idea, sneaks out right away to watch a ship being refueled. During this he shoves a guy out of the way of a meteor thus causing a chain reaction in which tons of space fuel gets leaked out.

Seeing that gas prices have apparently soared even further in the future, this causes Ray to get into deep doo-doo. Matter of fact, the commander tells him he is to report to the number 2 on the ship. Why, well the commander is leaving for some odd reason.

Anyhow Ray, with apparently nothing else better to do, stumbles upon the ship's navigator named Lucy. The two blather away about pretty much nothing and the movie switches to Ray and Al hanging out in an asteroid field. Not sure why someone would want to be around several potential life ending rocks hurling their way but Al releases some valuable information. It turns out the ship's crew is heading for Mars.

Ray pulls a few strings back on earth and finds himself an unwelcome, once again, crew member on the trip to Mars. On the way there though, they come across a ship being sucked in by a planet. They radio in to the crew to find out the ship is going down fast.

After one of the crew on the troublesome ship decides to become a lemming, the pilot tries desperately to get the ship to stabilize. However the ship blows up...well actually...and I swear I'm not making this up, the film literally cuts to stock footage of what appears to be an Osmobile getting blown up. They do it quick, but its just careless enough for one to notice. Its Un-f*cking-believable if you ask me.

Anyhow, the crew decides they should rescue the jumper from the ship. Somehow he survived the several story drop. I'm assuming that he is made of Nerf material. They get him off the planet and head off. Ray asks the commander when they'll be arriving on Mars. However it turns out...gasp...they aren't going to Mars. The commander informs him that they're heading for Venus...Venus...and still they stand tall. (Kudos to the two or three Europe fans that got that joke by the way.) Why...well we're about to find out.

So, in the best way I understood it, an unmanned destroyer ship called Alpha 2 is hurling uncontrollably towards earth.  Apparently there is some kind of 5000-mile invisible barrier around the ship that deflects even nuclear missiles. It would mean imminent doom for the people on earth.  "Oh dear me" as C3PO would say. 

Al does some idiotic math equations and finds out there is a small but accessible gap in the barrier.  Whatever at this point I say.  Al takes off in a ship that resembles a ballpoint pen and Ray/everyone else follows.  Al (after firing 100 or so useless missiles) tries to pull a Bruce Willis in Armageddon move quite unsuccessfully. 

With Al off'd, Ray decides to head out into space towards Alpha 2.  Somehow, he finds the destructible barriers by chucking crap out of his little ship.  Ignore the stupidity...ignore the stupidity.  Anyhow, Ray makes it to the ship and snips a wire or two causing Alpha 2 to slow down a bit.  However, the brainiac doesn't realize that with the power off, theres no way off the ship.  Luckily for Ray the commander and his crew rescue him thus saving earth and thankfully ending the movie. 

Assignment Outer Space lacks any real plot dilemma or interest for that matter.  I'm not quite sure why anyone should really care about this movie or it's characters.  The good news is the cheese is there in the outfits, acting and just about everything else.
ITS THE INNARDS THAT COUNT (most gruesome/odd moments)
Very little to report here other than pitch-black areas...but enough about the plot.
YOU'RE A GRAND OLD A-HOLE (the A-Holes of the film get their moment)
1.)
Ray - Granted he was billed as the hero of the film but I coudln't find one reason to like him.  His job was nowhere near as bad as any reporter who has ever had to review this film.
OVERALL GRADE
Click here to go back to the review page
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1