Upon seeing coming attraction trailers for this new sci-fi comedy from Dreamworks, I thought to myself, Oh no, another dreadful, meaningless comedy to look forward to this Holiday season! It looked positively awful. To my surprise, Galaxy Quest was a lot of fun. Although it is essentially a one-joke movie, it contains some very funny performances (the best coming from Die Hard's Alan Rickman), and some wonderfully clever moments, along with witty dialogue.

Tim Allen heads the cast as a well known actor from an old, popular sci-fi television show. He and his fellow cast members (including Rickman, and Sigourney Weaver) spend most of their days attending conventions where their crazy fans continuously drool over them. The action begins when a group of real aliens (assuming the shape of humans) seek Allen and his crew's help in destroying an enemy. It seems that these lovable aliens have been watching Allen's famous television show from their world, only they believe that the contents of the show are real, and have based much of their technology on what they've seen from Allen and his goofy gang.

Galaxy Quest is light, and breezy entertainment that sort of reminded me of similar sci-fi films from the 80's including; Explorers, Last Starfighter, and Ice Pirates. It's fun watching all the inside jokes, most of which poke fun at Star Trek and the legions of fans that show has generated. It's also nice to see such heavyweight actors as Rickman and Weaver having so much fun.

Earlier this year, there was a fun documentary called Trekkies, in which Denise Crosby (Star Trek: The Next Generation) traveled around and documented the crazy world of Star Trek fans. Galaxy Quest, like Trekkies, doesn't really make fun of the fans, but celebrates their wild energy. In fact, in the entertaining Galaxy Quest, the fans even get a piece of the action.

If you're looking for a goofy, fun time at the movies, you could do much worse than the likable Galaxy Quest. It's one of the most entertaining films of the holiday season.