It is my admiration for Mr. Nielsen that makes this "film" so very heart-breaking. For it is here we see an actor's talents fatally squandered, the polar opposite of Christopher Lee in The Two Towers (who is only a handful of years Leslie's senior). If you haven't seen 2001: A Space Travesty, know that at one point while watching it I had to cover my face with a pillow. Not to block out what I was seeing, but because I had begun bashing myself in the head with my fist involuntarily. My body had assumed that my brain had corrupted somehow(due to the fact that I was still seated in front of this movie), and was trying to kill me as a failsafe for the protection of those around me. That is not a joke.

This is, without hyperbole, the worst film I have ever seen. And I've seen Summer Job. And Think Big, with the Barbarian Brothers. And Meatballs 3. And Return To The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with Renee Zellweger, all young and cutey-pie (sigh). The Stuff. Species II. Armageddon. Volcano. Jack. Good Burger. Nothing But Trouble. Leonard Pt. 6. Disorderlies. Rad. Dream A Little Dream. Vice Versa, 18 Again, and any other movie from the 80s where people swap bodies. I have this policy: if a movie I'm watching looks like it's going to be screechingly horrendous, better watch it all the way through so I NEVEREVEREVER HAVE TO SEE IT AGAIN. Believe it or not, I'll actually lose sleep wondering if the greatest thing in the world might be at the end of something like Battle Queen 2020, since I didn't see the whole thing. Okay, that sounds retarded. Forget I said that.

Minutes into this movie, I heard a sound, a deep, soul-searing animal howl, like the kind that emits from a mother cat who discovers her kittens have been run over as they were crossing the street. As the film progressed the wail grew louder and more piercing, until the windows quivered. It was with some surprise that I realized the noise was coming from my own throat. This film is like the videotape from Ring, only it won't kill you in a week, it'll kill you right now, as you pull a Mola Ram from Temple of Doom on yourself and rip your own heart out while it still beats.

You probably think I'm overreacting. In which case, I'll assume you haven't seen it. The film is celluloid Agent Orange. It makes Freddy Got Fingered look like Citizen Kane. It should be a recruitment film for atheism, because it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is no God. I suppose I should back up what I'm saying with some examples. So here Master, I flaggelate myself bloody just for you. You owe me.

The "plot" of the film concerns police officer Dick Dix (thank Timmy in Mrs. Siedleman's 4th grade class for that one I guess), played by Nielsen, who was obviously given the direction "act like your Police Squad guy!" The movie takes place in 2001, even though Clinton is still President, and there's a way station for all sorts of aliens on the moon (known as Vegan, which I thought was a type of vegetarian). Dix is sent to Vegan with Cassandra Menage, played by Ophelie Winter, who according to the film's website is worshipped as some sort of goddess across the pond in Frogland. She's got great boobs, and is kind of pretty in a heavily-made-up way, but it looks like she broils in a tanning bed a bit too often and is probably gonna look like an alligator purse by the time she's 30. She can barely speak English, but the director seems to have thought that her cleavage would distract people from that fact. (It worked for me.) Dix and Menage are sent to the moon because somebody replaced Clinton with a clone, and the real Clinton is being held prisoner on Vegan, where he is undoubtedly snogging some fourteen-titted intern from Uranus. See, that lame joke is a googol-times funnier than anything in 2001: A Space Travesty. Where's my check, bitches?

Our heroes arrive on Vegan after a space shuttle ride (I'll spare you any tasteless remarks about which shuttle should have exploded, thank you) that provides many "sight gags" involving zero-gravity. Such as Dix choking on a piece of space food, which finally blasts out of his mouth and ricochets around the shuttle interior with the appropriate Road Runner sound effects. Can you possibly surmise where it will alight, Amazing Kreskin? That's right! Deep in the cleft of French Chick's incredible bosom! Oh, and for all you scientists: according to this film, zero gravity causes hallucinations. Not funny ones though, more like people in costume ballroom dancing. Are you reading this, Omni? Time to get up and current on your shit, yo. Word.

On Vegan, the space station is a lot like the police station on Earth in the beginning of the film: FILLED WITH HUNDREDS OF EXTRAS. IN LOUSY COSTUMES, RUNNING AMOK. I'm not kidding. In a scene where (maybe I'm blue-skying here) you're supposed to be paying attention to what the main actors are saying, people in the background are continually crashing into each other, screaming, throwing chairs, whathaveyou, all while dressed as sumo wrestlers, aliens, cheerleaders, color guard members, and celebrities from twenty years ago like Prince, Truth Or Dare-era pointy-boob-cone Madonna and Hulk Hogan. This film wasn't directed, it was piled, like elephant shit. Nevertheless, Dix and Cassandra vow to get to the bottom of the Clinton-clone scandal. Thank the gods, I was worried.

Eventually they do. An alien walks into a toilet at a party and explodes it with his shit (he only shits once a year, we're told), so that the Italian Officer Who Also Can Barely Speak English Yet Also Produced can stagger out covered in it, dripping from head-to-toe. The villain's toupee is the subject of a running gag that could edge out that 639-year-long John Cage piece for length. Any object that Dix is told to be careful with he totally demolishes, while music cues that would make Bert I. Gordon blush rise up to ensure that any semblance of subtlety or timing is totally annihilated. Stupid, unfunny jokes unroll with machine-gun pace. Without stopping. At all. Ever. The action culminates, almost surrealistically, at a Three Tenors concert (lookalikes again- was there a package deal?) where Clinton plays a sax duet with his clone. Pound, pound, pound goes my fist into my testicles. I've watched this film twice. I'm not allowed to breed.

The French Chick does some slo-mo kung fu while swaddled in bubble wrap. It should be sexy, but it appears as though she's wearing granny panties underneath. (By the way, there is no nudity in this film. None. Do not see it.) When the end credits mercifully begin to roll, we are treated to a narrated aural tour of all the wonderful different types of farts. If you've made it this far into this film, that funny metallic taste in your mouth is a gun barrel. Don't do it. It's not worth it.

I'd like to end this on a positive note. It's the only way I can keep from crying uncontrollably at this point. Leslie Nielsen, as well the other actors in this movie, gave their all. It isn't their fault. Leslie Neilsen has been in over 130 movies. It isn't his fault. Maybe it was a great, big, drunken blast making this movie. How could it not be? But they should have called it a fun party, sobered up, and burned every existing print of the film. Because if anybody from another planet ever sees it, they're going to shell us out of existence. And we'd thank them for it. It's for our own good.