In the year 2304, colonists from Mars are attacking Earth, so the Earth council conjures up a plan: they will send the crew of Spaceship Surprise — Cpt. Kork, Mr. Spuck — to travel back in time, to the year 2004, when a UFO crashed in Nevada and its technology enabled people to colonize Mars, thereby preventing colonization of that planet from ever happening. The time machine, in the form of a couch, sends the two, plus Taxi driver Rock and Metapha, to the 14th century, then to the 19th century and the Wild West, until they finally arrive to the year 2004. They destroy the crashed UFO, and return back to the year 2304, where Earth is thus saved.
At the time of its premiere, this feature length adaptation of comedian Michael “Bully” Herbig’s TV sketch became the 2nd highest grossing German movie of its time with a 51.3 million € gross (though it was just at #11 place when the ticket sales are counted, as over 9,000,000 people saw it at the theaters), just behind “Manitou’s Shoe” on the first place, also directed by Herbig, thus making Herbig the double master of Germany’s box office at the time. He didn’t use this lucky streak wisely, though, or maybe he even couldn’t—since “Traumschiff Surprise” is a weak comedy that aged badly, and signaled his limited range which quickly collapsed, thereby becoming forgotten as fast as it appeared. The majority of the jokes are lame, the story is a mess as it doesn’t even follow the environment of the quasi “Star Trek” crew (they travel back in time, to the 14th, 19th and 21st century, which means they appear in the eponymous spaceship for only 10 minutes!), but its biggest problem is that the movie simply isn’t funny. Herbig rips off inferior sexual innuendo gags from the inferior sequel “Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me”, which makes these gags even more inferior.
For instance, the Surprise spaceship has a shape of a giant penis—and when the space Taxi flies away from it, it looks like it is ejaculated into space. Unfunny. While in the 14th century dungeon, Taxi driver Rock sits, places a rubber toy on his lap, and encourages Mr. Spuck ("Mr. Spit" in English) to touch it, since it spews a long tongue, yet as Cpt. Kork looks at their shadows, it looks as if Spuck is touching Rock’s penis which keeps popping up. Still unfunny. As they are about to be teleported, a crew member uses a device to scan Spuck, and the device beeps around the latter’s crotch; Kork orders Spuck to “take his pants off”, he complies, they see Spuck is wearing metal underwear, as he explains it is there to protect himself: “Teleportation always goes on my balls”. Still unfunny. They finally find a miniature UFO in 2004, a miniature frog alien sits on it, drinks from a beer can, coughs, so Spuck gives him an asthma inhaler, but this just causes the alien to explode, as its blue blood covers Spuck’s face. Still unfunny. This is garbage humor. Nothing works here, everything is forced or contrived or juvenile, with the only reason for the characters to travel to the Wild West is to have Sky Du Mont reprise his role of the villain from “Manitou’s Shoe”. A lame populist comedy that scraps the bottom of the barrel and leaves no stone unturned, “Traumschiff Surprise” seems more like a scam from a 12-year old that half-heartedly assembled several lame gags just to sell them to the naive audience than a truly worthy, inspired comedy that would represent talent of these actors.
Grade:+
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