Un ticket pour l’espace (2006) - film review

Lack of support from a tax weary French public threatens to jeopardise France’s programme of space research.  The head of the research team, Simon Werburger, comes up with an idea to raise the necessary funding – a new scratch card which will offer two ordinary French citizens the chance to spend a fortnight aboard the space station.   Although the scheme is a success, the man charged with piloting the shuttle to the space station, Beaulieu, refuses to take part in what he considers to be a cynical marketing ploy.  He changes his mind when he learns that Soizic, the woman he worships, has been assigned to the mission.   The two winners are announced.  They are Stéphane Cardoux, a failed actor whose wife has just left him, and Alexandre Yonis, whose keenness and preparedness for the mission soon appear suspicious.  Beaulieu ultimately recognises Yonis as one of his former colleagues who has a deadly grudge against him – but too late.  Yonis has managed to take control of the space station’s control systems and intends to send it crashing into France unless his brother – a notorious serial killer – is released from prison…

Although slightly marred by a tendency for excessive silliness in places, Un ticket pour l’espace is a pretty respectable parody of the latest generation of American sci-fi adventure movie.  The film reunites Kad Merad and Olivier Barroux who had made an effective, and extremely popular, double act in director Eric Lartigau’s previous film, Mais qui a tué Pamela Rose?  Merad and Barroux are easily the best thing about this film; they not only give us the best laughs, but also manage to invest some measure of realism in their characters – thereby preventing the film from ending up as a self-indulgent mass of plot contrivance and cheap laughs.  Guillaume Canet is pretty good too, playing arch villainy in a way that suggests he may be a graduate of the Anthony Perkins schoool of creepiness.

French cinema has traditionally shied away from science-fiction, although the availability of affordable effects technology and the increasing popularity of the genre in France appear to be changing that.  Un ticket pour l’espace has the kind of Hollywood blockbuster production values that would have been unimaginable in a French film a decade ago.  It is to the credit of its production team that the special effects are not over-used and are there to support the narrative rather than, as is so often the case these days, to serve as a substitute for a weak storyline.

With its zany comedy and attractive cast, Un ticket pour l’espace has the makings of a cult classic.  Yes, some of the sci-fi concepts are ludicrously silly – but this is parody, not Ray Bradbury.  Even if a few of the jokes misfire, there are plenty more that hit their mark.  And there’s plenty of fun to be had spotting the plethora of references to American sci-fi movies of the past three decades – the most obvious being a turkey-flavoured send-up of Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), which will definitely put you off your Christmas dinner...

© James Travers 2008

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