[rating:3/5]
I watched this Scifi classic last night. I love old movies like this. Five people are selected to go to Mars. The pilot of the ship is an engineer who is in love with a woman scientist. Two other male scientists and a journalist go along. As soon as they leave the Earth’s atmosphere, the scientific BS begins as it is explained that they have countered the problems of zero gravity with their electromagnetic fields. It’s going to take nine whole days to get to Mars. (Cough, cough) Also they are barely away, when the Earth based control room loses radio contact with them because they are too distant. The only method they can receive information from now on will be by means of rocket propelled message cylinders. The radio’s really suck in this movie.
The journalist starts hitting on the girl right away, and the tension begins in space on the way to Mars. They dodge a meteor storm and in the process damage their landing gear, and so instead of landing gently and toppling over, they auger it nose first into a mountain of snow which then proceeds to bury them in an avalanche.
No problems with the mysteries of exploration on this trip, as soon as they look out the window they see smoke stacks sticking up out of the ground and a building with a door on it. Within thirty seconds they are approached by very human Martians wearing Teletubby colored space suits, and are invited down into the luxurious city of the Martians. The Martians speak their language because they’ve been listening in on our radio broadcasts for years, but for some reason haven’t been able to broadcast anything back. (?) Yeah, uh radio waves people, if they can travel one way they can travel the other way too.
As soon as they are brought into the city, they meet with the council of rulers. The head honcho Ozrim, or something like that, tells them about how great everything is in the Martian city and how its all run by the wonders of the mineral Corium, which provides them Hydrogen and Oxygen. Forget all that pesky snow on the surface, which would be a wonderful source of the mystical H2O substance. Yeah, that’s two hydrogen’s and one oxygen. But Corium is the preferred element on Mars, and as soon as our human hero’s leave, we find out that the Martians are running out of this precious substance. So they plan to hijack the human ship and make hundreds of them once the humans have finished fixing it. Then, they will invade Earth, kill everyone on it and take it for themselves. Evil Martians.
Our human pilot Engineer gets a new Martian assistant with very long sexy legs and a short dress. They soon fall in love which ticks off girl scientist. This opens the way for reporter boy who has turned into a moody solitaire playing grump ever since she shot him down. Now things really speed up. Sexy Martian assistant overhears the invasion plot and she sides with the humans. They speed up their plans to fix the ship and escape before the council takes over their ship. After a faked explosion fails to convince the Martians they aren’t ready, they are chased to the ship where they take off and the credits roll.
I was left sitting there, thinking, it’s over? Really? Where’s my concluding scene? Where’s the windup? Did you run out of money?
Sure these films have problems, but they are oh so much fun to watch. I would recommend this movie, just be prepared for the sudden brick wall at the end.
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