Short Takes: Cinema: GalaxyQuest

Long after their show has gone off the air, GalaxyQuest’s cast drag themselves numbly to conventions, where geeks in space suits assault them with technical queries. Turns out a few of the dweebs are actual aliens, who believe the show’s actors are just the astral heroes needed to rebuff an attack on their planet. There’s a bit of humor in the spectacle of Tim Allen as a Shatnerized action figure and Sigourney Weaver as a blond bimbette, but the premise–familiar from the 1986 comedy !3 Amigos!–needs more ingenuity to enliven it than anyone here could muster. In this space epic, no one will hear you laugh.

–By Richard Corliss