Black holes used to scare the crap out of me when I was a kid. In my young, easily freaked-out mind, they were like these giant, immensely powerful vortexes spinning around in space, just sort of... sucking stuff up. And if you got too close, you were doomed to fall in forever, with no hope of escape. I would lay awake at night, staring up into the starry sky and imagine that a huge whirlpool would appear overhead and begin to swirl up the stars, getting bigger and bigger until it would gobble up the Earth too. Presumably this is why I always had such an obsession with Disney's 1979 sci-fi opus "The Black Hole," a movie that both played into my fears of the cosmic unknown and dished up plenty of laser battles, robots, and spaceships (the holy trinity of any young boy's fantasies.)

Now, right off the bat, it has to be said that "The Black Hole" is not exactly a masterpiece. It's got some pacing issues, the characters are paper thin, much of the science is flat-out wrong (or just head-scratchingly weird), and the comic relief (oh, those wacky robots) starts off weak and veers into intrusively annoying as the story chugs along. That said, there are plenty of things about the film that remain impressive, even 30-plus years later.

Disney may have made the film mainly because "Star Wars" had suddenly made science fiction a hot property at the box office, but "The Black Hole" has a charmingly old-fashioned story that's part "Posiedon Adventure", part "2001", and topped with a heaping scoop of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". Set in the year 2130, the film kicks off with a deep space science vessel's discovery of a monstrous black hole... a phenomena made all the more fascinating by the revelation that another, much larger ship is hovering impossibly close to the event horizon. Deciding to investigate, the crew finds that what at first seems to be a derelict ghost ship is in fact a legendary lost vessel, the Cygnus, still under the command of the charismatic - and slightly menacing - doctor Hans Reinhardt (played with maximum beard by Maximillian Schell.) Rounding out the less than welcoming crew of the Cygnus are a squadron of creepy, mysterious robots wearing blank, mirror-like masks and monk's robes.

At first looking only to repair their ship and be on their way, the crew of the science ship soon find themselves caught up in Reinhardt's insane quest to plunge the Cygnus into the nearby black hole, which he believes is a gateway to the ultimate knowledge of the universe. As Reinhardt's madness escalates, grave secrets about the fate of the original crew come to light, and soon our heroes must fight their way off the ship before the Cygnus passes the point of no return.

It's a nifty idea for a sci-fi adventure that mixes operatic space action with a looming sense of wonder (and terror) at the mysteries of the universe... not to sound too much like an old codger pining for the good old days, but they really don't make them like this anymore. For starters, the film opens up with a bona fide musical overture, courtesy of composer John Barry. Just two and a half minutes of rousing, atmospheric music set to the background image of a star field. Just to set the mood. I know, I know... in this ADD-addled day and age, nobody would ever sit still through something like an overture ("Where's the moooovie? I didn't pay to just... listen to stuff. Blow something up already!"), but see, back in ye olden days, going to a movie was more than something you did at the mall in between buying shoes and chugging some Mongolian BBQ at the food court. Going to the movies was an event. You went to the theater expecting something grand, something bigger than life. The musical overture was a way of pulling you out of the real world and into the world of the film. It set the tone for what you were about to experience. By the time the story began, the music had truly made you ready for it.

If the characters of "The Black Hole" aren't exactly three dimensional (they range from such stock archetypal classics as Stoic Captain, Science Lady, Cowboy Lieutenant, Funny Robot and Ernest Borgnine), they're at least serviceable enough to keep the story moving. Interestingly, the most accomplished performance comes from (uncredited) Disney movie vet Roddy McDowall, who gives the crew's floating, trash can-like "funny" robot V.I.N.CENT an aura of poignant humanity that manages to overshadow some of his human co-stars. Unfortunately, both V.I.N.CENT and his even "funnier" counterpart, a battered earlier model named B.O.B. (voiced with a southern twang by a likewise uncredited Slim Pickens) are responsible for most of the film's attempts to lighten an otherwise dark storyline with some really intrusive moments of comedy. (It also doesn't help that both robots, with their big, squarish eyes, squat bodies and round heads, bear an unfortunate resemblance to "South Park's" Kenny.)

Of course, a big-budget ($20 million, which was colossal in its day) sci-fi opus lives or dies on the quality of its special effects, and here is one area where "The Black Hole" really soars. While some of the opticals and matte paintings are dated by today's standards, the model work on the ships (particularly the huge, darkly menacing Cygnus itself) is extraordinary, while the vast, elaborate sets, particularly Reinhardt's massive control tower, are nothing less than stunning.

One of the most unusual aspects of the film, however, is its ending, which (mild spoilers here) conceptualizes the final trip into the cosmic unknown as a bizarre, Dante-like representation of heaven and hell. Tinged with overtly religious imagery that recalls Kubrick's "2001" by way of a Sunday school instructor's simplistic vision of the afterlife, it's a mind-bending way for the movie to end... not because it makes a whole lot of sense, but specifically because it doesn't. As a little kid, I remember scratching my head and going, "Huh... guess I'm too little to understand this part," not realizing that a good many grownups in the audience were just as baffled as me. Now that I'm older, I can more or less see what they were going for - a sort of "science doesn't have all the answers, and in the end, Reinhardt tried to meddle in God's domain" 50s-esque moral that probably sounded better on paper. Doesn't make it any less anti-climactic, though... after all the buildup about learning the ultimate secrets of the universe, getting a bunch of hazy, heavy-handed symbology about good and evil is like going through three "Matrix" movies just to find out that Neo is CyberJesus.

In any case, while "The Black Hole" may be flawed, it's also fascinating and often sincerely entertaining. Heck, at times it's even thrilling. Dark - and sometimes legitimately scary - it's a reminder of a time when the fun of science fiction came from ideas and atmosphere, not just eye candy.