Leofwine_draca MOONTRAP has the perfect genre cast: THE EVIL DEAD's Bruce Campbell and STAR TREK's Walter Koenig team up as a pair of astronauts who are busy investigating a robotic mystery on the surface of the Moon. That set-up sounds great, but in reality the execution turns out to be quite pedestrian; this has the look and feel of an Albert Pyun movie, say, rather than a 'proper', well made movie.It looks cheap and it is. About the only thing MOONTRAP has going for it are a series of robotic creations which are pretty good in a cheesy '80s kind of way. The animation is fairly decent, with some scenes bringing to mind the likes of ROBOCOP, but it's the story that also lets this one down. There's little to no scope here, just characters wandering around aimlessly and fighting repetitively.Campbell is given short shrift by the script and that awful haircut of his doesn't help. Koenig is, somewhat hilariously, playing a youthful hero type (his character appears to be at least 20 years younger than the actor), the sort of guy who gets the girl at the end, which is a little weird and unworkable. But really, there's not a lot going on here, especially for fans of the sci-fi genre who will have seen it all before.

Scott LeBrun Astronauts Jason Grant (Walter Koenig of 'Star Trek' fame) and Ray Tanner (Bruce "Ash" Campbell) discover some ancient alien artifacts in the vicinity of the moon. Among them are an alien corpse (that turns out to be 14,000 years old), and an object somewhat resembling one of the eggs from the "Alien" franchise. When the object and the corpse merge into a menacing cyborg, our heroes are motivated to make a return trip to the moon to see what else is out there. They're in for some more discoveries. This time, one of them is a very human looking female named Mera (lovely Leigh Lombardi).Director Robert Dyke and screenwriter Tex Ragsdale try not to overstate matters. Basically, Jason has to figure out for himself what the story is, and expresses it out loud just to make sure that we get it. Dyke does a creditable job of working with an obviously very limited budget, but establishes a fairly grim atmosphere right from the start. The practical special effects are actually pretty damn good considering the constraints. Joseph LoDuca composed a decent enough score. While Dyke and Ragsdale are to be commended for creating a serious mood, they don't hesitate to insert a little levity here and there. As can be expected, the swaggering Campbell does have his moments. There's just a little bit of gore, but folks looking for exploitable elements will be pleased to see that Lombardi and an exotic dancer both bare their breasts. The dialogue isn't always so hot, but the performances are fine from the two leads, and they do create some chemistry. It IS nice to see veteran Koenig in a top billed hero role.Be sure to wait through the closing credits for a little bit of an epilogue."Moontrap" is decent, deliberately paced entertainment that may have some appeal for lovers of sci-fi / horror combos.Six out of 10.

shinsrevenge I was very impressed the first time I saw the movie. And my opinion hasn't changed over the years. Honestly, I can't find any flaws or weak points in Moontrap. The special effects are great, everything from the alien space ships to the robot creatures was imposing. The music helps building up the right atmosphere and is always fitting. The plot is exciting, dramatical and quite pacey. You never get the chance to bore. The acting is pretty good, too.I'd say, that the story isn't very predictable. I can't be sure about that, though, because I've seen Moontrap so many times that there are hardly any surprises. But even the fact that you can see it over and over again should tell much about the quality of the movie.There are some films, that you can (barely) watch once and then never again. This isn't one of them.

The_Void What we have here is a film without the budget, and enough talent within the cast and crew, to make its ambitious premise work. Even though Moontrap is a silly and ultimately forgettable film, it does have a handful of unique elements. Chief among them is the fact that most Sci-Fi films take place in the future - whereas this one sets it's scene in 1969 - twenty years BEFORE the film was made! Furthermore, the film takes place mostly on the moon, which even though it's the closest celestial body to Earth, doesn't often feature too much in films. But other than that, this is a cheesy throwaway movie with more bad ideas than good ones. The plot follows a mission to the space surrounding the moon, where two veteran pilots stumble upon an alien spaceship. One of them goes to investigate, and ends up bringing back something that looks like a rugby ball, and a decaying human corpse. It turns out that the rugby ball is some kind of robot alien and it soon grows in size and uses some of the corpse in its own body. After that, the pair returns to the moon...Of course, my main reason for seeing this film was because of the fact that Bruce Campbell is in it; I wouldn't even have considered it otherwise. Campbell proved in Evil Dead II that he is capable of an amazingly entertaining and truly over the top performance; but unfortunately, director Robert Dyke has seen fit to have Bruce in a role that is more reminiscent of his subdued part in Maniac Cop. Also, Campbell isn't the lead actor - and that accolade falls to Walter Koenig. The problem with both of these performances is not that they're not bad - just that they're not very good, and the pair has absolutely zero chemistry. Of course, you can't expect great acting from a B-movie, but one thing you can expect is fun and this movie doesn't have much of that either. The special effects are amazingly crappy, even for a film like this, as the models used look really poor. The locations are no better, as you'd have to be a complete moron to even slightly believe the scenes set on the moon. But even so, there are a lot worse films than this out there (many featuring a big budget and coming from Hollywood), and despite its many, many flaws; fans of trash cinema may get a kick out of this trash.