5/10
Visually excellent, entertaining, and campy sci-fi adventure
20 May 2005
Before you view this film, you should read some of the comments on it here on IMDb. Most of the film is lifted from Planeta Burg, a Soviet sci-fi film made around 1960 by none other than legendary American workhorse B film-maker Roger Corman. Corman added Faith Domergue and Basil Rathbone and some poorly dubbed English, but, thankfully, left the plot, soundtrack, visuals and most of the dialog intact. What's enjoyable about this film is the original film included within it.

The story line is pretty simple. A manned space flight to Venus encounters many unforeseen challenges, including a great diversity of life forms, including, possibly, intelligent beings. Braving the elements of this tectonically unstable planet, an unbreathable atmosphere and dangerous creatures are several cosmonauts and a powerful and intelligent robotic android (somewhat derivative of Robbie the Robot).

This is a nice piece of mid-twentieth century pulp sci-fi. While it doesn't carry the weight of many of its contemporaries - such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, or Forbidden Planet, etc - it's enjoyable for its clever low budget visual effects, eerie atmospherics, and inventive technological ideas. Great film for sci-fi buffs and film history fans.
25 out of 26 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed