Spaceballs

Vaudeville pratfalls, sight gags, and ribald one-liners have always been producer-director Mel Brooks's mainstay. Here the jokes are tossed haphazardly from Brooks's gag bag and roll out ineffectively in a spoof of the "Star Wars" films. The plot, such as it is, offers pretty princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga), daughter of kindly King Roland (Dick Van Patten), as a kidnap victim of evil Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis). Space adventurer Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and his sidekick, Barf the Mawg (John Candy), are assigned to retrieve Vespa. Thus begins a ridiculous odyssey through space with blazing rockets, death rays, and firefights among the stars, resulting in a slaphappy ...