Tubi Tuesday: Three Films Worth Your Time This Week
Tubi is still the best deal in streaming, and it isn’t close. While Netflix and the rest keep raising prices, shrinking catalogs, and green-lighting content nobody asked for, Tubi stays free and keeps its shelves stocked with the kind of films that made going to the video store worth the trip. Classics, cult favorites, cheesy genre pictures, and everything in between. Every week, I pull three worth watching from the catalog this week.
This week, we’ve got one of the most beloved sci-fi parodies ever made, a creature feature crossover that delivered more than it had any right to, and a Greek mythology action film that gets unfairly lumped in with its weaker predecessor.
Spaceballs (1987)
Comedy/Sci-Fi • 1h 36m
Mel Brooks took Star Wars, strapped it to a flying Winnebago, and sent it careening through every comedy bit he could think of, and the result is one of the funniest films of the 1980s. Bill Pullman plays Lone Starr, a roguish space mercenary hired to rescue Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) from the evil Spaceballs, led by President Skroob (Brooks himself) and commanded in the field by Dark Helmet, Rick Moranis in arguably the funniest performance of his career. The film runs on quotable lines, fourth wall breaks, and an absolute refusal to leave a joke on the table, and John Candy as Barf the mawg brings a warmth to the whole thing that keeps it from being pure chaos. It didn’t set the box office on fire in 1987 but it found its audience on cable and VHS and has never let go.
The reason to think about Spaceballs right now is that a sequel is actually happening. Spaceballs: The New One has Brooks, Pullman, Moranis, and Zuniga all returning, with a 2027 release date locked in. Before that arrives it’s worth going back to the original and remembering why the thing built the following it did. There’s a reason people have been quoting “ludicrous speed” and “I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate” for forty years. If you’ve got kids who haven’t seen it yet, this is exactly the right kind of film to introduce them to. It’s on Tubi right now for free and it holds up completely.
AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)
Action/Sci-Fi • 1h 41m
The concept of Alien vs. Predator had been kicking around since 1989, started as a Dark Horse Comics crossover, and spent fifteen years bouncing around Hollywood before Paul W.S. Anderson finally got it made. Critics buried it, franchise purists complained it wasn’t hard enough R-rated, and it sat at a 21% on Rotten Tomatoes where it remains to this day. None of that is entirely wrong, but it’s also not the whole story. What Anderson actually delivered was a lean, fast-moving creature feature with a genuinely interesting setup: a billionaire assembles a team of scientists for an Antarctic expedition, they discover an ancient pyramid buried under the ice that turns out to be a Predator hunting ground, and within the hour Aliens and Predators are tearing each other apart with a handful of humans caught in the middle. The mythology around how the two species connect is more inventive than it gets credit for, and the action sequences deliver.
Sanaa Lathan is a solid lead and the film is smart enough to let the Predators be something other than pure villains, which opens up the second half in ways the premise alone doesn’t suggest. It’s PG-13 and that does limit what it can do, but the creature effects are practical where it matters and the Alien and Predator designs both look great. The sequel, Requiem, is a genuine mess and not worth your time. This one, taken for what it is rather than what the purists wanted it to be, is a perfectly good Tuesday night monster movie. Free on Tubi.
Wrath of the Titans (2012)
Action/Fantasy • 1h 39m
The 2010 Clash of the Titans remake was a disappointment. Everyone knows it. The effects felt rushed, the story never found its footing, and “release the Kraken” became a punchline faster than the marketing team could have anticipated. Wrath of the Titans, the 2012 sequel, quietly fixed most of what was wrong with it and almost nobody noticed because they’d already written the franchise off. Jonathan Liebesman came in as director with a tighter script and the film is genuinely better in almost every category. Sam Worthington’s Perseus is back, now a widowed fisherman trying to stay out of divine business until Zeus (Liam Neeson) is captured by Hades and Ares and the Titans start breaking loose. The cast around Worthington is strong across the board, with Ralph Fiennes doing interesting work as a Hades who has actually reconsidered some things, and Rosamund Pike bringing real presence to a role that could have been generic.
The action is where this one earns its keep. The Tartarus sequence, the labyrinth, and the finale involving Kronos himself are all genuinely impressive set pieces that hold up better visually than you’d expect from a 2012 studio fantasy film. It isn’t trying to be anything more than a big entertaining Greek mythology action film, and on that level it succeeds. The critics who showed up already checked out after the first film, and that’s their loss. Wrath of the Titans is one of the more underrated blockbusters of that era and Tubi is the perfect place to give it a second look.
That’s your Tubi Tuesday for this week. Three films, no subscription required, and none of them are going to waste your time with a lecture. Tubi Tuesday runs every week here at Titanquisitor, so check back next Tuesday for three more.
And if you’ve got a Tubi hidden gem that deserves a spotlight, drop it in the comments and let me know.
