The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)

Resembling a thirty-years-too-late sequel to Moon Zero Two, this nicely-designed but otherwise clumsy vehicle casts Eddie Murphy as a fast-talking operator who owns a club on the moon in 2087 and has to go on the run when a mysterious gang boss (who turns out to be his own evil clone) tries to take over his operation as part of a scheme to capitalise on the fact that gambling is only legal in this part of the solar system. A conventional chase, with Pluto (Murphy) and a winsome singer (Rosario Dawson) pursued by angry minion Joe Pantoliano, this finds room for satirical bits from Quaid as a grinning but outmoded robot bodyguard, Pam Grier as Pluto's two-fisted Mom, John Cleese as the AI chauffeur of a luxury car stolen during the plot, Jay Mohr as a Sinatra renascent crooner (his hit, naturally, is 'Fly Me to the Moon'), an unbilled Alec Baldwin as a mob figure and Illeana Douglas as an unethical body resculptor. The moon colony of Little America is part Vegas, part Wild West and part ripoff of everything from Total Recall to Outland, with the odd aircar chase across the pitted surface and space opera gadget thrown in to differentiate it from the earthbound likes of Murphy's showings in Harlem Nights or the Beverly Hills Cop sequels. The very occasional clever footnotes – Mohr giving a big build up to his orchestra, which turns out to be one man and a synthesised Nelson Riddle accompaniment – are buried under a wealth of predictable robot French maid gags and dispiritingly regulation runabout action scenes, plus a heroic Murphy who seems no less smug and unappealing than the evil version revealed in the finale.

First published in this form here.

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