It's a bizarre mix of often spectacular scripting, definite comedy cameos and low budget 80's fantasy played with the straightest of faces. In one scene you might find yourself cringing from the atrocious acting and bad dialogue and in the next you might find among the finest comic lines in cinema history impeccably delivered. Can the elements that are clumsy and awkward have been intended when it's creators were clearly capable of the sublime?
In that question I think lies it's genius. It strides the line between naive camp and intentional irony like an absolute colossus. Pushed any further in either direction, to put a positive stamp upon it would spoil the fun to be found in both the possibility that this is all some happy accident and that it has been masterfully constructed to appear so.
It allows you to laugh both with it and at it within the same breath, and I very much doubt there is another film in which this is so successfully the case. It's a unique comedy, which makes it both rare and precious. But then again, maybe it really is just a shakey children's film with some strong lines. I hope to never learn the difference.
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