Spaceballs (PG, 1987)

When spoiled Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) is kidnapped by President Srkoob's (Mel Brooks) evil regime, it's up to scruffy hero Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and his faithful companion Barf (John Candy) to rescue her.

Brooks's Star Wars parody isn't particularly sophisticated, but older kids and teens should have fun with the goofy humor -- like most Brooks fare, SPACEBALLS revels in crude, sometimes infantile gags. For example: When the Darth Vader-inspired character, Dark Helmet, first appears, he approaches the camera, breathing heavily through his face-obscuring mask. Suddenly he flips up the front of the mask to reveal a nerdy-looking Rick Moranis, who exclaims, "I can't breathe in this thing!"

One of the great virtues of Brooks' masterwork, Young Frankenstein, was its beautiful re-creation of the look of the horror films of the 1930s, which added punch to all the ensuing silliness. Here, you don't really get the impression of watching a Star Wars movie gone mad: Many of the cheap-ish looking sets wouldn't look out of place on an episode of Saturday Night Live. Nevertheless, there are moments when the movie shines. Excessive merchandising is taken to task in a very funny scene in which Yogurt (Brooks again) hawks everything from Spaceballs the toilet paper to Spaceballs the flame thrower ("the kids love this one!"). And the movie's most memorable gag pays tribute to both the Alien series and the classic Chuck Jones cartoon "One Froggy Evening." Another good bit manages to work in a re-creation of the famous conclusion of Planet of the Apes.