NASA is eagerly awaiting the return of astronaut Captain Mark Devore (Harry Johnson) in his spaceship “The Solo I”. His wife Ellen (Gretchen Corbett) and son Ron (Steven Mond) are at Mission Control hoping to see him on the monitor when he is within radio and video contact. Reporters are also on hand to record the event. Mark has been in space for a year on a solo flight to check out a black hole. The architect of the mission is Colonel Ed Westin (Adam West).
Westin has the hots for Mark’s wife Ellen. Westin knows that there really is no black hole out in space. His reason for sending Mark out to look for something that isn’t there was to get Mark out of the picture for a while so he could zoom Ellen. On board the ship is a special computer created by Westin called Wes Ten. Mark has made modifications to the computer to make it more user friendly. He calls it MUD.
When Mark actually makes it back from his mission Westin secretly instructs the computer to bring down its shields so that the space ship is vulnerable to meteor showers. The ship then goes through a space anomaly that sends it one year into the future. Instead of landing in 1984 the ship lands in 1985. The anomaly also throws Mark into a parallel universe. This results in Mark being invisible to anyone on Earth except animals. Everyone in 1985 believes that Mark died in space.
MUD analyzes the situation and determines that Mark needs to find a way to return to space and go back through the time warp in order to get back to 1984. His time is limited since the time warp is not only moving away it is closing. The spaceship, Solo I, springs a leak and there isn’t enough fuel to get back. Mark has four days to figure out a way to get back to the time warp or he will be stuck in space and time.
“Time Warp” was released in 1981 and was directed by Robert Emenegger and Allan Sandler. It is a made for TV science fiction comedy film. It is one of two made for TV science fiction movies that Adam West starred in during the same year. The other was “Warp Speed” 1981.
The movie is heavy on the corny side. Harry Johnson is clownish and Adam West is lecherous. The comedy is juvenile and the story kinda rambles. There are also some plot holes here and there. It’s not horrible just not fun. Some of the special effects are cheezy which is fine. Sometimes cheeze adds camp to a movie. I don’t mind un-special, special effects but there needs to be something to anchor down the film. The best part of it was the plastic space ship bobbing along in front of a picture of stars.
The movie was written by Anne Spielberg. She is Steven Spielberg’s sister. Many note that the film has actors that played DC comic characters Batman (Adam West) and Superman (Kirk Alyn) together. Kirk Alyn, who played the first live action superman, has a bit part as a NASA technician. The voice of the computer called MUD was done by Barry Gordon.