The Black Hole

It is good to see the Disney craftsmen doing what they do best on such a grand and risky scale. If one has time for only one space opera this season, this is the one to choose.

Disney's most ambitious and costly production to date -- about a spaceship crew which encounters a Black Hole and a long-lost madman -- and if looks were everything, you could hardly fault it.

It cost half as much as Star Trek and looks better -- not as lavish, perhaps, but more original. The special effects are fancy, and the design even more so.

Takes us all the way to the rim of space only to bog us down in a talky melodrama whipped up out of mad scientists and haunted houses.

Desperately tries to fuse Disney's characteristic kiddie funtime japery with Star Wars-style action and world-building.

Despite Oscar nominations for cinematography and visual effects, the Black Hole, an attempt to cash in on the sucess of Star Wars, leaves much to be desired.

The problem...is that the protagonist, Schell, is nuts, and we find it difficult to root for him. The other characters are never fully developed, and so the picture becomes a triumph of style over substance.

Is let down by the weak script.

The science of this fiction is as hokey as the drama, but the imaginative art design and excellent special effects are magnificent.

An elegant, if stubbornly unexciting, popcorn-muncher that flips into a chin-scratcher, with a crew of mostly bland heroes.

Ranks among the very best films to come from the post-Star Wars sci-fi boom.

...ultimately revealed to be an underrated and surprisingly dark Disney effort.