Think of it as a "Seven Samurai" in outer space. OK, well there are only six warriors in "Galaxy Quest" but the comparison kinda works. They are a group of has-been actors whose sole claim to fame is a TV series called "Galaxy Quest" that went off the air 18 years ago. But American human beings weren't the only ones watching the show. In another galaxy, aliens on the planet Thermia had also been getting the airwaves. Firmly believing the "Galaxy Quest" crew to be real-life superheroes, the Thermians transport themselves to Earth (actually downtown L.A.) to recruit the actors for intergalactic warfare. Oh yeah, and this is a comedy.

Directed by Dean Parisot, who with this one picture has leaped into my list of favorite directors and for whom I would like to offer my services as dishwasher or shoe polisher (anything humble and abject), "Galaxy Quest" is undiluted Cinematic Yummy on so many levels. There's nothing mean or smug in the jokes, the parody is always under control and the digital sequences are obvious and fun.

In other words, it's not one of those movies that puts the viewer to work. Instead, we can all bask in the knowledge that this is something majestically mindless and that the money spent on tickets and all that junk food bought in the lobby -- hey, that's money well wasted. In this era of unending complications, there are few things out there that make you feel this way.