Galaxy Quest

A set of hammy TV actors turn up for a sci-fi convention only to be met by real aliens who, having only seen them on TV, mistake them for a real space crew.

Given that Star Trek and Star Trek fans are such campy jokes to start with you don't have to have such the imagination of Charles Dickens to see there is potential here.

The real surprise is that we don't get cheapo jokes, but fully formed, fully funded jokes. Indeed there is more plot and budget than many films that try play it straight.

The crew being actors think there may be a buck involved and go along with what, they initially think, are over-the-top fans and before they know it they are in space having a fully formed adventure.

Jokes about spacemen, mad Trekkies, transporters with side-effects, token blacks, interracial love, British thesps who detest what they do, aliens who don't have a sense of humour, characters who think they are going to be killed because they don't have a second name, and lots, lots more.

Once again I stress that this subject was a sitting duck for satire, but what is amazing is how clever the script is, worse will win Oscars. And the jokes just keep coming. Not all of them funny, but the ratios of hits to misses is pleasingly high and the cast are good enough to make themselves look like idiots as well.

The climax is both and funny and appropriate and had me laughing over the final credits. Highly recommended unless you are the butt of some of the film's bang-on-the-money jokes.