paceman (Ghilardi) was abducted by aliens as a child and returns to Earth
years later a confused man. Not only can't he find a commander to tell him
what to do, he can't even find a job. He's turned down by the Army and the
FBI. This is a problem, because for the last 25 years he's been trained to fight to the death in mortal combat. Unfortunately, the only place he can find work is a supermarket, where no one wants to engage in battle.
Dressed in his spacesuit, Spaceman goes about the business of trying to
assimilate back into Earth culture. He follows the orders of his new commander (the supermarket manager) and conquers every task given to him. Things go well until he injures a shoplifter and gets fired.
Spaceman is not sure what to do next (after all, he has no commander now). Then the pretty girl next door, Sue (King), asks him to watch her apartment for the weekend and feed her cat. Spaceman sets about the task at hand and cleans and remodels her apartment. He even learns to pet her cat. When Sue returns,
Spaceman is shocked to discover that Sue is not his commander. She tells
him that he can do whatever he wants.
But Spaceman doesn't know how to do whatever he wants, and he ends up injuring several men who try to beat him up, earning him a trip to a mental hospital. There he discovers that he's been having visions of someone named "mommy" and he also learns about a position he just might be, ahem, suited for. He escapes from the hospital and heads for the mob to apply for the job of hitman.
Hot on Spaceman's trail are FBI agents who would really love to dissect him, as well as everyone he knows. Pretty soon, Spaceman has lots of worthy opponents to do battle with and even a pretty girl by his side who wants to help him find his mother.
A silly space comedy on a budget
Talk about being low budget. Spaceman was filmed for a mere
$50,000, nearly bankrupting writer/director Scott Dikkers. While it's quite
obvious the movie was filmed on a shoestring (okay, less than half a
shoestring), it's easy to forgive the poor quality and lack of special
effects as soon as Spaceman shows up in his cheesy spacesuit.
Although it doesn't seem like Spaceman would stand a chance against today's high-budget, effects-driven blockbuster films, this flick shows that moviemaking is about telling a story, not just about creating dazzling sights. While the film quality is the weakest element of Spaceman, the script is its strongest.
Dikkers is the editor-in-chief of The Onion, a free weekly humor publication based in Madison, Wis. With Spaceman he brings his knack for humor to the big screen, spinning out a silly tale and filming it in a perfect, deadpan style. While Spaceman is not a laugh riot, it has plenty of funny moments. And Dikkers' script is full of surprises as the title character goes around dealing out death and destruction...in a good way, of course. With foes such as the FBI and the mob, it's not hard to root for the misguided but determined Spaceman who's just trying to follow his nature as an outer-space killing machine.
As Spaceman, Ghilardi wears his suit well. He carries the film,
with considerable help from King as the pretty girl with a thing for this
futuristic fighter. In a movie like this it would be easy to end up
with a lot of bad performances. However, the supporting characters do just
fine under Dikkers' guidance. That's a pretty amazing feat considering that
Dikkers undoubtedly used his share of volunteers.
