**It might be really funny to a lot of people, but it didn't work for me.**

I know there are a lot of old movies that are painfully bad. Some of them are so bad they're funny. This is quite well known. What I didn't know was that there had been a TV series in the past that made fun of these movies. “Mystery Science Theater 3000” was a series that never aired in Portugal and that I only became aware of when researching this film. Now I understand better certain things that I didn't realize when I was watching it, but even so, I feel that it is a film that is not for me.

Before writing, I went to see an episode or two of the original series to compare. What the film did was, essentially, a movie episode. The differences are minimal, and that seems a bit lazy to me right off the bat. There are lots of films based on good TV series, and it's not uncommon for the opposite to happen, but generally there is an effort, on the part of those who make the films, to give us something different, even if the base is there. That didn't happen here.

Also, the film tries to make witty jokes based on the older film, but it splatters roundly on the floor with each one. First, because there is a bad placement of the jokes, which happens before we even realize why, as if it were a spoiler. And then, because they are dull jokes, a type of humor that seems like it would only have a chance to work at the expense of a few very alcoholic drinks. I just don't like humor like that, and therefore the movie didn't have any jokes. Luckily, it was a fairly brief movie, just over an hour, or I would have stopped and moved on to something really more interesting.

Produced at a time of tumult for the cult-favorite television series, the _MST3k_ movie touched down in theaters just as the show’s original run on Comedy Central came to an abrupt end. A fan-powered letter writing campaign would revive it for three more years on the Sci-Fi channel, but a shallow pool of bad movies and the departure of founding cast member Trace Beaulieu made this second iteration feel somewhat lesser than the first. So here, upon the silver screen, lies what is effectively a farewell address from the glory days. They step out on a high note.

The subject of Mike and the bots’ mockery is _This Island Earth_, a 1955 science fiction classic that’s better-known than their usual fodder but no less ripe for ridicule. Its dated special effects and self-serious tone provide ample opportunity for zingers and the boys, still in their prime as a trio, don’t miss a beat. _MST_’s theatrical version is paced a little differently, actually running shorter than the typical episode and with longer pauses between jokes (there was legitimate worry that larger, louder audiences would drown out the puns at their usual rate), but the old quirky magic still shines and the team’s batting average is through the roof.

An absolute side-splitter, whether you’ve seen it a dozen times before or never experienced the _Mystery Science Theater_ treatment at all. It’s been a few years since I sat down with this one, but I was shocked by just how many of its quotes and one-liners still crop up in my own daily lexicon. I’d wager the same is true for any serious fan of the show.