he Eagle has landed.” On July 20th, 1969, man landed on the moon. Two decades later, a NASA space shuttle, crewed by Colonel Jason “Einstein” Grant (Walter Koenig) and Commander Ray “The Penetrator” Tanner (Bruce Campbell, apparently cast to continuously spout glib one-liners) locate a radar signal, emanating from what appears to be some kind of extraterrestrial ship, whose orbit is decaying, which will quickly result in the vessel disintegrating as it approaches Earth. Though it’ll be incredibly risky, Grant insists on floating through the inky darkness to reach the craft – which he discovers is covered in strange hieroglyphics – before he’s able to enter through a hull breach.

“This is history!” Once inside, the colonel finds a football-shaped relic that doesn’t appear to match the rest of the burned-out ship. Perhaps even more shocking is the retrieval of a humanoid corpse, drifting from out of the ruins. And upon returning to Earth, it’s shockingly determined that the organic body is carbon dated to 14,000 years old. While the scientists are overwhelmed, the Washington bureaucrats are skeptical; paper-pusher Haskell (Reavis Graham) thinks it just might be a hoax, undertaken for the sake of acquiring a bigger budget. Since the evidence suggests that some sort of ancient base existed on the moon, Grant and Tanner insist upon going back; the answers certainly lie on the mysterious satellite.

“Our best flying days are behind both of us.” Despite the quarantining of the outrageous items, they don’t seem to be well-monitored. With seemingly negligible surveillance capabilities, the football artifact sprouts tentacles, scans the cadaver, then manipulates metal objects to construct an oversized automaton with a clearly non-human intelligence (the football serves as a brain of sorts, crafting a zombie-like figure that would be used to a much more grotesque degree in “Virus”), which wreaks havoc on the NASA facility and its regiment of shotgun and machine gun-toting guards. If the derelict alien spaceship was a stretch, the killer robot engaging in a bullet and electricity fight is a step too far.

“Hey partner, you see any little green dudes out there?” The dialogue is dreadful, the music is simplistic (manufactured via stabs at a synthesizer) and poorly designed (never quite fitting the onscreen actions), the sets and props are flimsy and futuristic in an unconvincing way, the acting is mediocre (the film definitely doesn’t boast an A-list), and the special effects are shoddy (even the miniatures are subpar). From a technical standpoint, “Moontrap” leaves a lot to be desired. Nevertheless, once the picture abruptly cuts back to a fresh mission on the moon (Argo I), with Grant and Tanner joined by orbiter pilot Major George Beck (Tom Case), there’s a certain charm to the continued dismal effects and visuals, which aid in the mystery of the civilization that previously existed centuries earlier. This is the kind of project that could have benefitted tremendously from a bigger budget.

Since the premise is hokey, it’s not surprising that the characters don’t take their situations seriously. The better moments borrow a bit from “Planet of the Vampires,” while the realism drops sharply again as it steals concepts from “Lifeforce” (“Screamers” takes other elements down more creative avenues) – including the uncovering of a human woman, Mera (Leigh Lombardi). The senses of exploration and adventure are minimally intriguing, but every time a hackneyed solution arrives, the wonderment of this unsoundly ambitious experiment is dashed aside. Strangely (and unfortunately), “Moontrap” looks as if it was made in the ‘50s or ‘60s, not the late ‘80s. As a result, it’s thoroughly underwhelming in all regards, even if it’s intermittently so bad that it’s funny (including a nonsensical sex scene on the moon!), which allows for a handful of seconds of genuine entertainment value.

– Mike Massie