"The Black Hole" (1979)

(Christ, this is the longest review of my career and it's about The Black Hole.)

Starring: Maximilian Schell, Anthony Perkins, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux

First, The Lowdown: An exploratory vessel finds a ship missing for 20 years parked next to a black hole. Then things get weird.

Every fan of crap cinema knows which film actually turned them over to the dark side. For some, it’s Japanese monster flicks, others it’s Chinese martial arts dramas, and for some it was Peter Graves. For me, it was The Black Hole: a movie that proved to me that you could watch something so overwrought and cheesy you smell the vapors of freshly melted Gruyere wafting off the screen, but still find it entertaining. I first saw this film at the drive-in, an appropriate venue, as a double-feature with Sleeping Beauty. I was 4 at the time, so after the cartoony action of Sleeping Beauty I fell asleep within the first 15 minutes of the film. I’d later revisit it when it was released on video (much to my parents’ chagrin). More on this later.

The Palomino, an exploratory vessel, is on its return trip to Earth when it has to make an unscheduled course correction. The cause of this correction is a black hole (oooooooh!) that is smack dab in their way - which looks like a perpetual Ty-D-Bowl ad in space. Vincent, a dippy floating robot that looks and sounds like the bastard lovechild of R2-D2 and C3P0 (Arthreepio?) and is voiced by an uncredited Roddy McDowall, calls the crew to the bridge so they can gape at it – especially Science Officer Alex Durant (Anthony Perkins). After chewing on some expository material for some time and making random metaphoric statements, Vincent shows that there is a spaceship anchored next to the anomaly that does not appear to be affected by the black hole’s (oooooooh!) gravitational pull. Reluctantly curious, Capt. Dan Holland (Robert Forster) set the Palomino to investigate.

The ship is the Cygnus, another Earth exploratory vessel that had been missing for the last 20 years that looks like someone had put Notre Dame for restoration, then said “fuck it”, attached big rockets to the scaffolding and launched it all into orbit. No communication is coming from the derelict ship, and no signs of life or power are evident. As the Palomino gets closer to the larger vessel, the gravitational “turbulence” that was rocking the ship suddenly quiets as if shut off. The Cygnus is in a bubble of anti-gravity that prevents it from being caught by the black hole (oooooooh!).

Apparently forgetting about the effects of forward momentum, the crew of the Palomino find themselves drifting out of that protective field and back into the sway of the black hole (oooooooh!). Fully caught, things start going awry in the engineering section as well and a panel bursts open outside. This allows the other science officer, Dr. Kate McCrae (Yvette Mimieux), to demonstrate her telepathic rapport with Vincent, who is working on the exterior damage. Durant, with the assistance of journalist Harry Booth (Ernest Borgnine), repairs most of the damage, but announces to Capt. Holland that they don’t have the parts to fully fix everything and are at risk of losing their oxygen supply. Left with little alternative, Holland orders Second Officer Charles Pizer (Joseph Bottoms) to dock with the Cygnus. As the Palomino makes its approach, the Cygnus suddenly lights up, disproving the suspicion that the craft had been abandoned.

Once docked, the crew makes their way inside. Even though the ship has power and life support, and there is no evidence of damage, the interiors are empty and disused. Kate has hope, however, because her father was stationed on the Cygnus. Because of the ship’s immense size, they have to take a tram to the forward control tower. Upon arriving there, they find the command center manned by mute robots that look like Benedictine monks with a cool reflective faceplate – and Maximilian. Maximilian is the only not-dippy-looking robot in the picture, bearing a resemblance to a Cobra action figure for G.I. Joe, complete with rotating blades.

There is one human remaining on board, however: Dr. Hans Reinhardt. Reinhardt was the commander of the Cygnus, which ignored its orders from Earth to return home. Reinhardt explains to the members of the Palomino that the Cygnus was severely damaged in a meteor shower, and he ordered the crew to abandon ship. They did not make it back, however, and Kate’s father (who elected to remain on board) has died. For 20 years Reinhardt has been studying the black hole (oooooooh!), negating its pull by creating an anti-gravity shield, and creating the monk-like servant robots and dippy-looking armed sentries to assist him. Reinhardt welcomes his visitors as guests and extends his hospitality.

As the crew wanders about the Cygnus, some oddities appear: Capt. Holland witnesses a funeral held by the servitor robots; Harry investigates the ship’s greenhouse and sees a massively stocked garden capable of feeding well over a hundred people and then watches the greenhouse minder robot walk away with a limp. The crew later dines with Reinhardt and he explains his ultimate goal: to pilot the Cygnus into the black hole (oooooooh!) and investigate what’s on the other side. While most of them are more concerned with the safety of making such a trip, Durant is intrigued with Reinhardt’s research and wants to stay on board to witness it firsthand.

Meanwhile, in parts storage Vincent finds another robot, Bob (voiced by Slim Pickens), who is an earlier model of Vincent’s series. Bob informs Vincent that his companions are in danger because Reinhardt is batshit insane. The Cygnus really DID get its recall message, but Reinhardt refused to acknowledge it. The former crew looked to McCrae (Kate’s father) for support and they attempted to take over the ship. They failed, however, and Reinhardt ordered McCrae and the other ringleaders executed. The rest of the crew were subjected to a kind of lobotomy to make them more pliable and less prone to resistance. Declaring that new fact to be the last straw, Capt. Holland decides to jump ship in the Palomino, but unfortunately still needs to fetch Kate and Durant who are with Reinhardt. Durant is still adamant about staying with Reinhardt, having been swayed by the opportunity to participate in something truly historical. Kate receives the news of her father and the crew telepathically from Vincent and explains to Durant what she knows. Barely believing, Durant corners a servitor and removes its faceplate – revealing a wizened man behind it. Horrified, both Durant and Kate try to make their exit, only to be blocked by Maximilian, who disembowels Durant. Kate is then escorted to the hospital to be “treated.” Vincent informs Holland as to what has happened to Durant and Kate and they group with Bob to the infirmary to rescue her, leaving Charlie and Harry to warm up the ship. They get pinned down after fetching Kate, so Charlie drags a reluctant Harry to help, only to get into a firefight themselves. Harry tells Charlie that his leg got broken in the scuffle, so Charlie leaves him behind. However, Harry was only faking his injury and uses the opportunity to try and escape. But Harry is a journalist, not an astronaut, so once the Palomino has taken off, he finds himself barely able to control the ship – especially when it gets caught in the black hole’s gravity. Reinhardt orders the Palomino destroyed before it crashes into the Cygnus, but after the smaller vessel is struck, it crashes anyway!

At this point the wheels of the movie start coming off. The crew, now stranded, has to make their way BACK through the Cygnus to get to Reinhardt’s probe ship and use it to escape. Reinhardt, has had enough of the pesky humans disrupting his perfect little science experiment and orders them liquidated. And all the while that’s going on, he orders the Cygnus to be pointed into the black hole (remember that?) for its final decent. Unfortunately a plot-driven storm of meteors strike the ship, knocking it hella off course, but the crazy-pantsed scientist still orders the ship to continue its descent - only to be crushed by one of the big-damn TV screens in the control room.

Holland and Co. make their way to the probe ship which is adjacent to the greenhouse. A shooting match with the sentries is cut short by a meteor scratching a hole into the structures roof and here the movie shows its full sneering disdain for the laws of physics as our characters treat such things as zero-atmosphere environments and decompression with the same worried concern that one would give a nasty storm (I’m serious, they walk outside the ship unprotected, making the black hole seem more like hurricane Rita). Needless to say, they make it to the probe ship, but then discover after it launches that it’s been programmed by Reinhardt to go through the black hole. After a semi-tense sequence of our travelers swirling in the vortex segues into surreal heaven/hell imagery (where the body of Reinhardt gets encapsulated into Maximilian), we see the probe ship exit the black hole intact - the end.

Now you would think that I hate this movie, but on the contrary, I love this movie. The Black Hole represents everything that I love about stoopid movies: overblown effects, convoluted drama, token name actors, and best of all – a sense of purpose in spite of how bizarrely it’s executed. At no point do any of the actors inwardly wince at the eye-rolling dialog they have to deliver – in fact, they seem to be enjoying it. And for a movie as cheese-laden as this is, some of the performances are pretty good – particularly the interaction between Maximilian Schell and Anthony Perkins as Reinhardt and Durant respectively. Durant’s temptation to do something other than be the “science guy” on an exploratory vessel is pretty palpable, and he has a pretty gnarly death scene to boot.

The perplexing thing about the movie is that in summary it sounds pretty cool: crew finds a lost spacecraft parked next to a freaky astronomical phenomenon that’s run by a weirdo scientist and his army of creepy robots. And for a while it looks like Disney really was trying to reach out to grownups and prove they aren’t just around to make more flicks with Herbie, The Love Bug. But unfortunately, they also tried to have their cake and eat it too by dumbing down the action and introducing unnecessary odious comedic moments via the cutesy market-driven robots, all so they can entice the grownup audience to bring their kids in too. Fortunately Disney eschewed the “kid tested, adult approved” idea for grownup movies when it made Tron three years later.

Line of the movie: “I don't mean to sound superior, but I hate the company of robots.”

Four stars. I think he said “oil can”!