Sometimes this blog will just try to describe how good Enrico Colantoni is in "Galaxy Quest".

 An excellent oral history of Galaxy Quest can be read here. 

 A lot of great things are also said in the documentary about its making, Never Surrender. What's left unsaid, yet still pleasingly integral to the documentary's structure, is how important Enrico Colantoni, who plays Mathesar, might have been to letting all the love in.

 

 Somehow, immediately upon seeing him, we know Mathesar's not only a genuine extra-errestrial, but that this is not his real body either, and that's a strong start. The alien-as-innocent isn't a new idea, but they'll normally be played as a kind of child-friendly robot butler; this is not how the Thermians are played. They have the monotone of a B-movie aggressor, true, but it's playful rather than haughty, a sign of vulnerablity, as if human speech is a frequency they're constantly having to tune in to. Nothing Mathesar does in the movie will signal anything we've seen before, yet we will understand him perfectly, even painfully. 

 

 Like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, Colantoni successfully imagined the expression of emotion in a body just one day old. Below is the scene screenwriter Robert Gordon said was the moment he finally knew what he was doing, before going on to write what David Mamet apparently descibed as one of only four perfect movies ever made; if you haven't seen Galaxy Quest, it's a very safe film to watch with someone for the first time – as my support bubble happily proved – so, like Mamet, I recommend it, but maybe don't watch this next clip. If, however, you've seen it, you know what's coming, because every decision Colantoni makes here is unforgettable.

 

 And Tim Allen's definitely great too, isn't he, faced with this, and suffering what Alan Rickman apparently called "a sudden attack of acting" (though, arguably, Allen seems more comfortable playing a version of himself than Alan.) Maybe Mamet was right. Everyone does seem to get everything right. Like Casablanca, this is one of those films that's Great because it's great. Casablanca though, on top of everything else, had an actual War going on to help with the emotional heft. But Galaxy Quest, on top of everything else, has Enrico Colantoni.

 

I wonder if Nancy Pelosi's also a fan.