Mark Twain’s book A Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King Arthur was published in 1889 and has been filmed several times - I’ll be looking at some of the other versions soon. This attempt, directed by Russ Mayberry, dates from 1979, and tries to bring the story bang up to date by making the hero an astronaut. When I went looking for it on the Disney channel I found it hiding out under an assumed name, like a snitch in the witness protection programme. It’s alternative title is Unidentified Flying Oddball, which is an absolutely terrible name for a film, and a completely inappropriate one for this film, but it does give the viewer some idea of what they can expect… Our hero is a horribly chipper NASA robotics expert called Tom Trimble (Dennis Dugan). Accompanied by his android double (?) he’s piloting an experimental space shuttle-y thing that somehow ends up going back in time the way experimental space shuttle-y things do (??) and landing in Arthurian times. Then things develop al...
Reviews and ruminations by Philip Reeve, author of the Mortal Engines series, the Railhead trilogy, Here Lies Arthur, Goblins, and The Legend of Kevin, Pugs of the Frozen North, etc, with Sarah McIntyre.