The Dark Side of the Moon

No, this isn't the seminal 1973 progressive rock album whose audio may or may not sync up with The Wizard of Oz. Rather it's a sci-fi film from 1990, with a huge hangover from the eighties. I'm going to get it out of the way at the beginning, the story here is totally off its tits. Whoever came up with this must've written it while under the influence of something seriously mind altering, presumably while listening to the aforementioned album of the same name. Are you sitting comfortably? Well tough, I'm going to begin anyway.

It's the near future. It's always the near future. 2022 if I remember rightly. A space ship is orbiting the earth, preparing to service a nuclear weapons satellite. Okay, all pretty plausible so far I grant you. Suddenly there's a total power failure and they can't find any logical reason for it. So they find themselves adrift in space and heading towards the moon. The crew in question on this particular ship are a bunch of guys and a token woman. Why is there only ever one woman? Actually that's not strictly true in this case. The ship's computer takes the form of an android woman. A rather hot looking cat suited android woman at that called Lesli. Seriously, all computers should look like this. The most notable member of the cast here is Joe Turkel, probably better known for having his eyes squished into his head by Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so they're drifting towards the moon. The dark side of the moon to be more precise, hence the title. Then all of a sudden, flying towards them they see the space shuttle Discovery. In this film the shuttle hasn't flown for 30 years and NASA no longer exists. I think they deserve a partial credit here seeing as the shuttle is indeed now out of service. The shuttle is clearly under controlled flight and not drifting like our friends. However attempts to hail anyone on-board Discovery are unsuccessful. This is where the story breaks down a bit for me here. So our friends have encountered a space ship that's no longer in service, flown by an organisation that no longer exists and there's no response from the craft. What's the first thing our friends decide to do? That's right, they decide to dock with the bloody thing and go on-board! I know our friends are adrift, and I know the thinking here is that they can use Discovery's fuel cells to power their own ship. But even so, I would've thought that there would be a degree of caution exercised here, but no. So two of the crew go over to Discovery and find the dead body of one of the crew, with his guts open and all of his insides exposed.

It's only at this point that they decide to find out what history says actually happened to Discovery. Apparently Discovery crash landed into the ocean. Into the Bermuda Triangle to be exact. Okay, this is where it starts getting weird. So the record shows that the crew of Discovery were all recovered dead. Apart from one of course who was never recovered, our dead friend with the hole in his guts. Our friends bring the body back onto their ship to try and ascertain how he died. Again, this isn't really the smartest move. The ship's doctor can't find any logical cause of death. Aside from the big hole in his guts, he seems fine. Meanwhile another member of the crew looks at the position of Discovery's splashdown in the Bermuda Triangle compared to its current location on the dark side of the moon. He discovers that the positions match up exactly and that there's a direct triangular corridor between the Bermuda Triangle and their current location on the dark side of the moon. I told you shit was going to get weird.

Then our dead friend decides to wake up. He finds the female crew member alone. She asks him who he is and what he wants. He responds in a rather cheesy Barry White type voice that he has many names and that he's come to take what is his. A thing then comes out of his insides and pulls her face into his guts. Nice. He then says "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of my name". That's right folks, it's Satan himself. So the female crew member is still alive but unconscious. But they decide to strap her down to the bed just to be safe. Wow, that's the first sensible thing they've done. But later one of the male crew comes into the room and she's no longer strapped down. They're about to have sexytime when of course a thing comes out of her guts and into the guy.

If you haven't quite followed, the full story is now revealed. So basically God banished Satan to the dark side of the moon. But Satan being a resourceful fellow has created a corridor between the Bermuda Triangle and the moon so that he can harvest 666 human souls and get back into Heaven. I told you it was monkey balls crazy. The rest of the film is basically just the diminishing crew running around, growing increasingly suspicious of one other, and accusing one another of being Satan. At the end of the film there are two crew left, one of them being Satan. The remaining good guy instructs the nuclear weapons satellite to fire upon the ship. Boom! Everybody dies. The end. Well not quite, as in the last shot of the film we see the dark side of the moon littered with all the wrecks of the ships and planes that have disappeared in The Bermuda Triangle over the years.

There's no denying it, the story is nuts. The film itself isn't too bad. The music, hair and effects are all very eighties. This film also has one of the longest, most boring opening title sequences ever. It's just nondescript, repetitive synth music with the credits running over a background of flames. And it goes on for nearly three minutes! I guess it was supposed to create suspense, but holy crap was I bored. I think this film tried to be a bit more horror than pure sci-fi, and for me that's where it falls down. The 'horror' was just too cheesy. And I'm sorry, but I really don't need God or Satan in my sci-fi, however cool they may be. The highlight for me was the android computer woman, but that's probably because I'm a man. IMDb currently rate this at 5.2 out of 10. I think that's a fair score. This film is average. It certainly can't hold a candle its album namesake. But if you happen to have naff all else to do with your life, you could do worse that give this a watch.

Ice Planet

I'm sorry, but I don't think this is going to be a review as such. More the meanderings of a confused mind. This film was a pilot for an intended tv series. Mercifully (and quite understandably) the tv series never saw the light of day. I've watched this thing, I've read and re-read the plot on IMDb and Wikipedia and I still don't get it. This film is confusing as hell. Maybe the plot was drawn up by a committee, I don't know.

So the film takes place 30 years after a war on earth between the Union and the Consortium, whoever the hell they are. The war wipes out 10% of the earth's population. We're told this at the start of the film by a female voice over that sounds like Captain Janeway if she'd smoked 60 cigarettes a day for the last 40 years.

Then we jump to this base on Jupiter's moon Io and this alien ship comes to attack it. The base commander reminds me of The Old Man from Battlestar Galactica. In fact a lot of this film reminds me of BSG, but BSG if it had been done incredibly badly. I do feel awful having to compare this dross to the excellent BSG, but seriously, if you watch this it's the first thing that springs to mind. Anyway, the base is being blown to shit by the alien ship. Another ship appears in orbit and it turns out to be a professor guy that the base commander knows. The professor says that the commander must evacuate the base immediately and the commander agrees. So everyone on the base is evacuated to the professor's ship. And just in the nick of time, as shortly after the whole moon is destroyed.

At this point the commander and the professor get into an argument. The commander says they must return to earth, but the professor says he must carry on with his top secret mission. The professor says that the commander must trust him and gives him a set of co-ordinates. After some more bad acting the commander eventually agrees, so they travel to the co-ordinates the professor has given.

After some naff special effects that are supposed to represent being pulled through a rift in spacetime or some sort of shit like that, they end up being pulled towards an unknown planet. So they end up landing on the planet against their will. The crew has a meeting to discuss what they have been able to ascertain about the planet. It's got an atmosphere and gravity very similar to earth, but the temperature is a chilly minus 10. They don't specify whether it's degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius though. I would've thought that was an important distinction to make. Nope, they just say it's minus 10. There's also some sort of magnetic field which stops the ship from taking off again. Also they appear to be so far outside known space that they can't even calculate where they are.

The professor then explains what he knows. He starts by saying that a few years ago a meteor landed in Sumatra, and that this meteor was older than anything encountered before in the galaxy. The meteor contained a crystal, and they discovered that this crystal contained an encryption embedded in the structure. (You following so far? I started to drift off a bit here). Sadly they couldn't crack the encryption. So they contacted the professor and some months later he managed to crack the code. The message contained instructions for building a space ship, the professor's ship that they're all on now. There was also a set of co-ordinates which were the ones they just passed through. The professor goes on to admit that there was also a reference to a potential attack, so he knew in advance about the aliens blowing Io to shit. He then has a private meeting with the commander. The professor says that the threat in the message was ill defined and that they did not want to induce panic.

So they have no idea where they are and they can't take off because of the magnetic field. However their small fighters can still fly, so their hotshot pilot guy goes out to take a look. In orbit around the planet he sees a ship that looks the same as the one that blew Io to shit. The alien ship sends out some fighters and the hotshot pilot guy has to eject in his escape pod and land back on the planet somewhere. Fortunately they discover that the planet's energy field repels the alien ships and they can't get through. They locate the signal of the escape pod and send a couple of people out to fetch hotshot guy.

Meanwhile hotshot guy is walking through the snow and encounters an alien that managed to hitch a ride on his escape pod. But then two other people appear, knock the alien out and then take hotshot guy to safety. The two people sent to look for hotshot guy come across a cave and they discover the professor inside who had gone out with his own party to explore the planet. They encounter a race of people in the cave who turn out to be human, but they speak a completely unknown language. So it turns out that they've been looking after hotshot guy and they were the ones that dealt with the alien.

The commander then visits the cave to look at what the professor has found at the centre of it. In the centre is a tree-like structure made of crystal. The same crystal that was found in the meteor that landed on earth. The professor says that he analysed a microscopic sample and found it contained more information on the human race than all of the earth's computers combined. He says that he found traces of many other civilisations too. The professor speculates it may contain the knowledge of an entire galaxy, or even a universe.

Meanwhile back on the ship the alien has managed to find its way aboard and starts killing off the crew. But then the alien takes some of the crew alive and takes off with them on board one of the ship's shuttle craft, taking them back to the alien ship in orbit. Then some shit happens that I'm still not exactly sure about. But I think that basically another alien life form that lives on the planet inhabits the body of a girl on the bridge of the ship and starts speaking through her. The alien says that the planet was a peaceful haven, but then the other aliens arrived. The crystal in the meteor that landed on earth was a distress call. The alien says our friends here are the first ones that have answered. Something like that anyway. My brain was turning to mush by this point. The commander says they must return to earth and asks the alien how. The alien says they cannot go back and shows them an image of a molten, burning earth. The professor asks if the image is what is happening now or what will happen in the future, but the alien doesn't answer.

Hotshot guy asks if the alien will help them rescue the crew on the alien ship. The alien says that hotshot guy can go and a crystal door thingy appears. He walks through the crystal door and disappears, reappearing on the alien ship. Our friends on the planet then discover that power levels for the weapons on the alien ship have suddenly dropped massively. We then see that hotshot guy has turned into this ridiculous looking blue dude with long white hair, shooting energy bolts from his hands. He then holds his arms aloft and says "It is time!" in a stupid echoey voice.

Our friends on the planet below then launch all of their fighters and proceed to the alien ship in orbit. There's the usual sort of fighter-on-fighter space battle that we're used to seeing. Meanwhile a shuttle craft with the commander and a bunch of armed crew lands inside the alien ship. As they exit the shuttle craft they are surrounded by aliens. But thankfully hotshot blue dude is there to shoot energy bolts from his hands and kill them all. After that he returns to being normal hotshot guy and they all bog off back to the planet, complete with the missing crew.

Then as if that wasn't enough, the planet disappears and reappears in a completely different area of space and it's now orbited by four moons. The commander says "We're somewhere else". Bravo for that astute observation. Another crew member says "I wonder where". The dialogue in this film is amazing. Then we hear Captain Janeway's voice again. She talks about them beginning a new life. Their journey has only just begin. Blah blah, etc. etc. The end.

My brain hurts. This must be one of the most badly written sci-fi films of modern times. No wonder it never got made into a tv series. It's so disjointed and confusing. Unlike the characters in BSG, the ones in this are all rather bland and nondescript. And they're badly acted characters at that. Visually it's not great either. The outfits look like something from 1960's sci-fi, not 2003. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, this film was released on DVD in 2003. It also suffers from early 2000's cgi, which probably looked amazing at the time, but it hasn't aged well.

I didn't feel any connection to the bland characters. The story was overly complex. And the guy turning into blue ice dude is just laughable. It's a shame really, because I feel that if the story were better and not so confusing it might've been at least half decent. But whoever had the job of trying to get backing for a series never really stood a chance.

Suffice to say this isn't worth watching. IMDb currently give it a 3.9 out of 10. Yes, it really is that bad. And according to Wikipedia there was a fan site for it, but it no longer exists. Search the interwebs and you'll find people who rave about this film. Those people are wrong. I'm glad this never got made into a tv series. This film was made in Canada. Yes, Canada has given us Celine Dion, Justin Bieber and now this. Canada has a lot to answer for.

Journey to the Seventh Planet

There's no getting away from it, this film is bloody awful. A good sign of a dire film is how soon you push the pause button to see how much longer you've got to sit through the thing. In this particular film's case I did this at the 25 minute mark. By this time my brain had already checked in, stolen the towels and raided the minibar of the I Don't Give a Fuck Hotel. But bravely I sat through the nearly one hour of film I had left to watch. The sacrifices I make for you.

Okay, so we're in the way distant future of 2001. Apparently by this time man has evolved to such an extent that everyone on earth now lives in total peace and harmony (yeah, that happened). By this time man has also explored all of our neighbouring planets as far as Saturn. So it's next stop Uranus. No I'm not going to make any jokes, but they do pronounce Uranus in a weird way. It's sort of Ur-ann-us, with an emphasis and elongation of the 'ann' part. Anyway, it's neither of the ways I've heard it pronounced in my life and it annoyed the hell out of me.

So we join our friends on their space ship, already on the way to Uranus. There's five of them, and they're all guys in this particular film. It's supposed to be an international crew seeing as how the earth is all one big happy family now. So there's a German guy and an Irish guy in the crew, both of them having the most horrendous accents I've ever heard.

So they near Uranus and they all suddenly glaze over and enter a trance. Then we hear some awful sci-fi music and see something that looks like the Mysterons from Captain Scarlet, closely followed by a voice that speaks some appalling dialogue. "Come. I have waited a long time for this moment. Give me your minds, your innermost thoughts. You are powerless. I shall drain your minds. You will submit, and I shall possess you" etc. I think you get the idea. Then the Mysterons disappear and all of the guys come to.

So they land on Uranus. Just before they open the viewing window to take a look, the surface magically transforms from a cold, icy, dark world, into something that looks suspiciously like earth with tress and shit. They venture outside and quickly establish that this environment has been created from their own minds, as one of the crew knows exactly where they are from earth. They reach the edge of the enclosed world that their minds have created. There's a sort of force field at the edge and they can't see through. The commander pokes a stick through the force field. When he pulls it back again it's completely frozen. Then having just seen this, for some idiotic reason the German guy decides to stick his arm through. He cries out in pain, pulls his arm back through, and now he has a blue, very cold looking arm. So the German idiot goes back to the ship and we're told that his arm has miraculously healed. The other four sit around a camp fire outside. They conclude that whatever has created the place they're currently in, it must lie outside the force field, so they decide they must venture beyond it.

Then as they're talking around the camp fire a farmhouse appears in the distance, apparently created from the commander's memory. The four of them decide to investigate. They enter the farmhouse and an attractive woman who the commander knows is there. Knowing that this can't be real their suspicions are heightened, so they quickly return to the ship. As the last guy is about to board the ship we see the Mysterons again. He glazes over and then we see two women from his memory, Lisa and Greta. They try and convince him not to go back aboard the ship, but he resists and gets back on board.

They decide that two of the guys should stay on board the ship. The other three will put on their space suits and venture beyond the force field. For some daft reason the commander decides to take the German guy again. Oh well, I'm sure he won't do anything stupid this time. Beyond the force field Uranus is cold, dark and icy, just as it should be. They see a hole in the surface and through it they can see some molten looking green goo below. The German guy decides to shoot it, exclaiming "Look, it moved when I shot it". We see the Mysterons again and the voice speaks some more bad dialogue. Then we see an incredibly badly animated and non-scary one eyed monster thing. They escape by shooting it in its eye and running back through the force field. So they return to the ship and the German guy admits that the monster thing was created by his mind because of his fear of rats. The thing looked nothing like a rat, but whatever. So the guys now realise that the Mysterons are tapping into their greatest fears too.

The commander goes back to the farmhouse to visit Ingrid, the woman created from his memory. He questions her to see if she knows anything about who or what is behind everything. She's remarkably forthcoming and says that everything has been created by a lone being on the planet who can use its massive brain at nearly full capacity. Quite why she would reveal this having been created by the being itself I don't really know.

So three of the guys venture out and find the massive brain thing that's behind everything. But the brain sends a big ass spider chasing after them. Thankfully they just used footage of a big ass spider for this, so no laughably animated monster this time. They manage to kill the big ass spider by shooting at the rocks above, which fall and land on the spider squishing it. They have to hurry back to the ship at this point because they're low on oxygen.

They decide they must destroy the brain. So they decide to build a massive acetylene torch to cook it. Rather conveniently there's a blacksmiths near the farmhouse, so they go there and begin construction. When construction is complete, for some reason the commander says they won't use the torch until the next morning. He says they'll take it in turns to guard the torch so that the brain doesn't try and tamper with it. Why not have two of them stand guard instead of one?  In fact, why leave it at the blacksmiths at all?  Why not take it back to the ship?  Oh well. The commander says that our German friend will take first watch. So when the German guy is alone, the Mysterons return and a rather attractive girl called Ursula appears. Ursula distracts the German guy while another girl comes in and she does indeed sabotage the torch.

The next day four of the guys take the torch to where the brain is located. The German guy attempts to light the torch but oh no, the torch doesn't work! Our German friend gets absorbed into the brain and dies. The remaining three think all is lost, but then the commander says they'll try and use the liquid oxygen from the torch's tanks to freeze the brain. They successfully freeze the brain and then shoot it to shit with their guns. They quickly make their way back to the ship. Ingrid is there and the commander takes her on board the ship. The ship successfully blasts off, leaves Uranus and then heads for home. But of course sadly Ingrid vanishes. The end.

This film is a pile of shite. It was made in 1962 and given that fact it should've been way better. There are far more competent, earlier sci-fi films than this (possibly all of them). The rocket and the planets look like something from Button Moon. And the acting is so bad. Quite frankly they'd have been better off hiring Mr. Spoon because he'd have brought more feeling and emotion into it. On the technical front, there's really no real science to speak of in this film. And using scenes constructed from the minds of the crew means of course that they didn't need much in the way of spacey, futuristic looking sets, which is probably the main reason why they did it that way.

I'd like to say this was a 'so bad it's good' film but I can't. It's just bad. It was tedious, bland and unimaginative. And I didn't care what happened to any of the characters in it. IMDb currently rates it at a generous 4.8 stars. I really can't recommend watching this at all. Spare yourselves, it's too late for me.

Cherry 2000

It's 2017 and the world has gone to shit (yay, only three years to go). America has turned into a wasteland with just a few pockets of civilised society left. On the plus side robotic technology has come on leaps and bounds, and you can now buy yourself a fully realistic android woman. This is just as well, because apparently relations with real women are increasingly hard to find and require a lawyer to draw up a contract in advance (no, seriously). Sam Treadwell has one of these android woman types, but she short circuits. The rest of the film is his quest to find a replacement.

The film begins with cheesy saxophone music and a silhouette of Sam's android woman getting dressed. At this point I was wondering exactly what sort of film this was. Sam's android is called Cherry and she's a 2000 model, hence the title Cherry 2000. Cherry is getting all tarted up, ready for when Sam arrives home. And yes, she's already got dinner and desert on the go. Sam (who looks eerily like Don Johnson) is a city trader of some kind. So Don Johnson arrives home and Cherry fixes his dinner and desert and asks him rather banal questions about his day. She starts doing the dishes, Don comes over and they start to have sexytime on the kitchen floor. Cherry has left the water running and soon it spills over onto the floor so they end up rolling around in water and soap suds. Cherry then short circuits as a result of the wet floor. Wait, so they have the technology to make perfect, human looking androids but they don't have the technology to make them water resistant? Oh well, whatever.

Don takes out her personality chip (which is actually a tiny cd) and puts it in a small playback device that he has. This enables him to listen to Cherry's voice even though she's expired. He then rather creepily has her lay in bed beside him while playing back her voice. Don's work colleagues encourage him to go out with them to a place where they plan to, um... hire ladies. Don eventually agrees, but once there he realises that he just wants Cherry back.

The next day Don takes Cherry to the local android repair guy. But he says she's beyond repair because she took on so much water. From the kitchen sink? I'm guessing sexytime in the bathroom is out of the question then. The android repair guy shows Don some other android models, but he doesn't like any of them and just wants Cherry. The repair guy says Don will have a hell of a job getting hold of one since they stopped manufacturing them before America went to shit.

Don goes about his day to day work, but is a sad, mopey bastard because he doesn't have his beloved Cherry. But then the android repair guy calls and says there's a abandoned factory that used to produce Cherry 2000s still in existence that may still have some of the old stock. The snag? The factory is located in "Zone 7", a particularly lawless area of the wasteland. The repair guy says Don will need to hire a tracker if he is to venture into Zone 7 to find a replacement Cherry.

Don travels to the edge of Zone 7 and to the town of Glory Hole (ahem) in search of a tracker. He finds a tracker called Edith Johnson (no relation to Don). Edith, or E for short is played by a young, red haired, hot looking Melanie Griffith (who incidentally actually married Don Johnson - twice in fact). In this film she reminds me a bit of a red headed version of Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner, which is no bad thing. So Don and E travel into Zone 7 in E's Mustang, which is nice if you happen to like American muscle cars (thankfully they don't encounter any corners).

They encounter a guy called Lester who is a nasty piece of work. He's a sort of self-proclaimed overlord of the area with many minions who he dispenses with if things don't go his way. Don and E end up separated and Don ends up staying with Lester, but Don quickly realises that Lester is a complete nutter and makes his escape to find E waiting for him. E and Don then travel to see Jake, an old tracker guy who taught E everything that she knows and E regards Jake as a father figure.

E starts to develop feelings for Don, but Don just keeps playing his stupid cd with Cherry's voice on it. E steals Cherry's cd and lies to Don, telling him that it has been lost. E and Don have a passionate session on the bonnet of E's car, but Cherry's cd is in E's back pocket and starts playing as she's on the bonnet, so that kind of puts a dampener on things.

Lester catches up with E and Don, but they manage to make their escape in an old plane that E has managed to repair. Sadly though Jake is killed during the escape. Don and E then fly on to the abandoned android factory, which is in the ruins of Las Vegas. They enter the factory and find a load of Cherry models, but E says Don must be quick in choosing one as Lester isn't far behind. Don finds a model to his liking and pops the personality cd in. Cherry comes to life and the three of them make their escape. Lester arrives and there's a gunfight. The three of them try to take off in the plane but there's too much weight. E jumps out and the plane lifts off with Don and Cherry on board. Don looks around and sees that E is gone. He sees her below, behind a barricade trying to fend off gunfire from Lester and his minions.

Don circles the plane around and lands. He asks Cherry to go and get him a Pepsi and so Cherry gets out of the plane. He tells E to jump on board. E does so and the two of them take off, leaving Cherry behind. Don and E fly off into the distance. Hooray! The end.

This film wasn't that bad. But I think I may be a bit biased as I quite enjoyed seeing a red haired Melanie Griffith kicking ass. She's sexy, confident and knows her stuff. This is in stark contrast to the android Cherry. Yes she has the looks, but her personality and intelligence are completely lacking. And when Sam tries to engage her in anything but the most basic of conversations, she just doesn't understand and gives up. That's the part I struggled to believe in this film. I couldn't understand Sam's complete and utter devotion to Cherry. Sam kept saying that their relationship was more than physical, and that it was Cherry's personality that he loved. But from what I could tell Cherry didn't have a personality. And the little of it she did have was on her personality chip anyway, which Sam of course still had. I couldn't see why Sam needed to go to all that trouble (i.e. real people getting killed) just to have the same model of android. There were many other just as attractive models that Sam could've just bought and put Cherry's personality chip in.

That aside it wasn't too bad. Cherry is a definite stereotype, but then she is an android. And this is contrasted by E's no-nonsense ass kickery. This is a film from the 80's and it shows. 80's hair, 80's music, 80's attitudes towards work and money, it's all there. There isn't much plot to speak of. There aren't really any special effects, it's just a Mustang driving in the desert and people getting shot. The acting and the dialogue aren't anything special. But still, I enjoyed it. This film is the food equivalent of junk food. But then every so often it's good to have junk food, you just don't want a diet of it all the time.

Apparently there were rumours of a remake, and Melanie Griffith had even suggested that her daughter (Dakota Johnson) play her character in the new film. But nothing seems to have happened as yet. Unlike certain other films, I would definitely welcome a remake of this. I don't have any deep feelings towards this film, so it's not possible to ruin my childhood memories with a remake. In the meantime you could do better than to watch this, but you could do a whole lot worse too. I'm looking at you, RoboCop 2014.

Rocketship X-M

I had every intention of watching this film so that I could rip the piss out of it. But in the end I discovered that I couldn't. Because considering this is a sci-fi film made in 1950, it's actually pretty competently done. And when you consider this film was shot in just 18 days in order to get it out into movie theatres, it's even more impressive.

The basic idea here is that the first manned mission to the moon ends up wildly off course and heading towards Mars instead. Upon reaching Mars the crew decide the opportunity to explore the red planet is one that shouldn't be missed and so they decide to land. The crew here consists of four men and one woman. One of the male actors in this looked very familiar to me. Then it suddenly dawned on me... it's Lloyd Bridges. The name may not be familiar to you, but I'm sure the face will, as Lloyd went on to play the "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit..." guy in the Airplane movies. Anyway, in this film he plays the pilot of the titular rocketship. There's also an older doctor guy who conceived the rocket, his attractive, young female assistant who is a mathematics nerd, another guy who is the navigator, and a fourth guy whose role I can't remember, but he dies anyway (spoiler).

The film starts with a press conference pre-flight where it's announced that this particular rocket is heading for the moon. The press conference is where we are first introduced to the crew. Where it veers a little from reality here is that the press conference takes place approximately 15 minutes before the launch. In reality of course the crew would've long since boarded the rocket. Also the crew are all wearing leather bomber jackets and look more like WW2 pilots than astronauts. But these things can be forgiven when you consider what they actually got right. The doctor guy then explains the rocket and the journey to the press. He talks about trajectories, orbits, gravity and all good sciency type shit. Fairly impressive stuff. He also describes the rocket, which is built from several stages (again good). The only bit that this film (and every other film of the time) gets wrong is that the rocket reverses down to the surface and uses its engines to land, both when landing on the moon and back on earth. In reality you of course have a separate lander for the moon and your capsule lands back on earth via parachute. But again, for the time it's pretty impressive.

After the press conference the crew climbs aboard the rocket. The rocket's crew module is quite impressive too. Well, at least it looks as if they're inside a cylindrical rocket and not just sat in a room. Plus they enter they module from a sealed hatch in the floor, climbing up a ladder through the lower stage, which has several fuel tanks within it. Again, not too bad really.

So the rocket blasts off and they all make comical faces to presumably show that they're being affected by the g-forces. Lisa, the female of the crew, looks like she's having some sort of "crisis". The external shot of the rocket taking off looks excellent and very realistic. The reason for this is that the film used footage of a V-2 rocket taking off. Still, it works for me. And I'd rather they do that than use some naff looking special effect instead. Once they're in orbit the shots of the earth out of the window look pretty good too. They also attempt to show weightlessness too, as one of the crew's jackets drifts upwards from its place upon the back of a chair. Also the straps to their bunks start floating upwards too. Apparently lighter objects can be weightless, but a human is too heavy to float. Still, have to give them credit again for the effort.

Once on their way to the moon, they are soon left powerless and adrift. Upon checking the engines and discovering that they're fine, the doctor guy concludes that the fuel mixture must be wrong. Lisa and the doctor guy then attempt to discover what's wrong by doing some equations and stuff. The doctor guy and Lisa come up with different results. The doctor guy proclaims that Lisa has made an error and that his calculations are correct. At this point they can only continue using one of their sets of calculations because to continue using both would take too much time. The doctor guy insists they use his calculations. Lisa has an emotional outburst and protests, but then immediately apologises. The doctor guy then forgives her for "momentarily being a woman". Yes, 1950s sexism is in full force in this film.

Once the calculations are made and they have the corrected fuel mixture, two of the guys head below to the engine compartment to make the adjustments (cue floating spanners). The adjustments are made and the guys head back to the crew module. Upon restarting the engines they accelerate way too quickly and everyone is rendered unconscious while the speed continues to climb. The pilot guy manages to kill the engines before he blacks out, but by that time they're already travelling way too fast with nothing much to stop them.

When they all come to the doctor guy proclaims that they've all been out of it for days. Quite how he knows this without checking a watch or a calendar I don't know. Actually no one thinks to do this, as Lisa says that they'll "never know" exactly how long they've been out for. I thought knowing the date and time was pretty important when it comes to navigating in space, but apparently not. The doctor guy looks out of the window and... holy shit there's Mars. So they unanimously decide that they must attempt a landing and explore. At this point I should point out that they would have to have been unconscious for several months, not several days to arrive at Mars, but then I'm sure you all knew that already.

So they successfully land on the surface of Mars. The doctor guy says they won't need their pressure suits because Mars has an atmosphere. The fact that it's 100 times thinner than that of the earth, 95 percent carbon dioxide and bloody freezing doesn't seem to matter much. But then they barely knew anything about the moon in 1950, let alone Mars. But when they do venture out onto the surface it's good to see that they are at least wearing breathing apparatus.

The film does something quite clever for the scenes on the surface of Mars, namely it uses a sepia tone film. This comes as quite a surprise after watching in black and white up to this point, and I have to say it's pretty effective. They discover a relic on the surface which indicates an extremely intelligent race once lived on Mars. But they also discover that Mars is highly radioactive and that this civilisation was destroyed, presumably by nuclear weapons. The doctor says something about intelligence always leading to self destruction (I think you can see where this is going now).

They decide to get some rest in a cave. One of the guys who can't sleep spots some people coming towards them and alerts the others. The people run off before any of the others see them, but our friends see their tracks in the martian surface so they decide to follow. They end up walking through a ravine (never a good idea) and they see people in loin cloths carrying spears above them. The doctor makes another comment "Atomic age to stone age" and as he does so, a boulder is pushed from above and comes crashing down towards them. The guy whose role I can't remember who dies pushes the doctor out of the way, and dies. The doctor expires soon after following a sharp implement to the back, but just before he does he tells the remaining three that it's imperative they get back to earth and tell everyone what they have found. The navigation guy gets hit by a rock. He's in a bad way, but Lisa and the pilot guy manage to drag him back to the rocket.

Once on board the ship Lisa calculates that they still have enough fuel to take off, travel back to earth and make a successful landing. That's pretty impressive considering they were going to the moon, but whatever. So they take off from Mars and head back to earth. With the navigation guy out of it this leaves time for Lisa and the pilot to have the rather inevitable falling in love scene (cue the awful, wispy violin music).

As they come closer to the earth Lisa prepares to fire up the engines for re-entry and landing, but oops... there's no fuel. Sadly she's miscalculated again. Silly 1950's girl, maybe in the future she'll learn to stick to womaning. She admits her mistake to the pilot guy. Lisa is saddened that the earth will never know the terrible truth that they learned. But then they realise that they should be able to contact mission control via radio. So they establish contact and relay all the information gathered from their trip. There then follows some more appalling "Hold me. Hold me tight" soppy dialogue before the rocket plummets to the earth and Lisa and the pilot guy are killed. Aww. The press then talk to the press guy at mission control. The press say that the mission was a failure but the press guy insists that it wasn't because of what they have learned. So much so that he insists that tomorrow they will begin construction of Rocketship X-M2. The end.

I have to say I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. It was nowhere near as naff as I thought it would be. Scientifically speaking there were a few misses, but the principles on the whole were pretty sound. This film undoubtedly carries a strong message about the dangers of an atomic civilisation and a nuclear arms race, especially relevant considering when this was made. And a film made in 1950 where the heroes die in the end?  No happy ending?  That must be pretty rare, and I commend this film for being brave enough to do it.

The big problem with this film of course is the rather stereotypical and sexist attitude towards the woman. In the pre-flight press conference a woman journalist asks Lisa "Is there any specific reason why one member of the crew should be a woman?". And before Lisa has time to answer the doctor answers for her, as if she's incapable of answering that particular question herself. Later in the film when Lisa and the pilot guy are talking Lisa says "I suppose you think that women should only cook and sew and bear children?" to which the pilot guy responds "Isn't that enough?" quickly followed by "There is such a thing as going overboard in the other direction too you know". So this film probably didn't do much to further equal opportunities for women. But then it is a film of its time, and I don't think many films of the time did that. That was still to come. So if you can looks past its scientific shortcomings and considerably old fashioned views towards women, this isn't actually a bad little film. And it's got that guy from Airplane in it, which can't be bad.

RoboCop 2014

I must admit, I had low expectations going into this film. And at no point during watching it were those expectations exceeded. Taken in isolation, this is a mediocre sci-fi film. But of course this film cannot be taken in isolation because of what it claims to be - a remake, re-imagining (or whatever the hell else you want to call it) of RoboCop.

It's a job to know where to begin. There's just so much wrong. I think one of the main problems is the rating of the film. The cinema release is 12A, which means that basically a kid of any age can watch it as long as they're accompanied by someone 18 or over. This severely limits what the film can show. But of course it greatly increases the number of people who can go and see it. And after all that's what matters, apparently. The original film was gritty, unapologetically violent, dark and funny. The new RoboCop is none of these things. Partly this is due to all the things that can't be shown of course, but mostly it's just because the plot and the writing is so weak. I may jump around a bit when I'm explaining what's wrong with this film. That may be because I'm not very good at writing reviews, but I think it's also fair to say that the film itself is rather disjointed. The original had a clear story and plot development. This film didn't seem to know what it was trying to be, or do.

So Murphy is the same honest cop with a wife and son, just as before. He has a partner called Lewis, although this time Lewis is a guy. Lewis seems to spend most of his time getting shot. But to be fair, Lewis got shot quite a bit in the original film too. They're trying to infiltrate this gun running organisation or something. Anyway, the baddies get tipped off that Lewis and Murphy are undercover cops and Lewis gets shot. But he survives after a little stay at the hospital.

Then we see Murphy at home with his wife and son. Murphy and his wife are just about to have sexytime when the car alarm goes off. Murphy goes down to switch it off and BOOM. Car blows up. This is another point where this film is just not as effective as the original. There's a disconnect here between the bad guys and Murphy. In the original film we see Murphy getting shot to shit by the bad guys. So when Murphy gets revenge on those bad guys, we're really rooting for him and can feel his anger. "I'm not arresting you anymore" is one of those classic lines that was great to hear, and we knew exactly what Murphy meant and felt. But in the new film, yes he goes after the bad guys, but it all feels a tad pointless really.

Another big difference here is that Murphy doesn't die. This was probably a way to get Murphy's wife involved in the story more. In the original film of course Murphy dies, so that's pretty much the end of his wife's involvement in the story. The police can do what they like with him. In this film his wife has to sign the consent forms for him to undergo his transformation.

So Murphy wakes up from a nice dream where he's dancing with his wife to discover that he's now RoboCop. Yes, in this film they don't wipe his memory, or ever really refer to him as RoboCop. In this film he's still basically Alex Murphy. This is another problem. The core of the original film's story was that Murphy had lost his identity and his humanity, and the rest of the film is his journey to try and get those things back. During the original film Murphy talks about himself in the third person "Murphy had a wife and son". It's not until the very last word spoken in the film that we see Murphy has rediscovered his identity. But in the new film he never really loses his identity, or his wife and son for that matter. Yes he loses his body, but his memories and identity are still very much there.

This leads to another laughable scene in the new film. So they switch Murphy on and he freaks out and does a runner. This particular RoboCop model has the advantage of being able to be shut down remotely. So that's what they do. Back at the lab Murphy starts to get the picture of what he's become. But he wants to see exactly what he is. So cue a scene where they bring in a full length mirror (although quite honestly a shaving mirror would've sufficed) and they remove the RoboCop suit so Murphy can see himself. Murphy is essentially a head, a pair of lungs and a hand. But again, because of the target audience, it just looks comical. This was done I suspect so we're not left wondering exactly how much of Murphy is left. A scene like this was not necessary in the original film because we saw Murphy get turned into hamburger by the bad guys, so we knew there was nothing left.

It also begs the question why keep the hand? Surely another robotic hand would've been better, stronger and more robust than a human hand. It seems like a lot of trouble to go to just to keep a hand. I think that's part of the reason why when I see the new RoboCop design, it just looks like a guy in a suit. That was something you could never accuse the original of. I never once doubted that the original RoboCop was basically a robot. The suit design was fantastic. The new suit looks lame. It's got this cheap plastic looking flip down visor thing. Actually the whole suit looks rather cheap and nasty. Couple that with the human hand and that fact that his head doesn't seem to fit snugly in the suit and it just looks wrong. I could've forgiven this film a lot if RoboCop himself looked awesome, but he doesn't.

They put Murphy through his paces by fighting a lot of CGI robots. Murphy mostly shoots robots in this film. Again I suspect it's because of the target audience. He shoots a few people, but there's no blood. And it's certainly not squib city like it was in the original. The shooting sequences in this film are very sterile and CGI heavy. At several points I thought I was watching a video game. The realness of the original has gone. Even Detroit, which was a crime, drug and ho ridden cesspool of a place in the original film doesn't seem so bad in the new film. Murphy battles a few ED-209s at one point, but again it's very CGI heavy. The design of ED-209 has changed too, but not for the better. And they did the unthinkable. They changed ED-209's voice!  He sounds nowhere near as menacing now. And he certainly doesn't growl any more. ED-209 is just a part of the scenery in this film and there's no iconic scene like there was in the original. Shame.

So Murphy fights crime and gets to visit his wife and son. I had a job believing the husband-wife relationship in this film. I thought the relationship between Murphy and Lewis in the original film portrayed more emotion and was far more believable. In my view it was an aspect of the film that didn't need to be there. After a while Murphy starts to get more of a sense of his self back, even though the guys at the lab try and suppress it through drugs. Murphy has the whole police department database in his memory, so he starts going about trying to solve his own attempted murder. The lab guys seem rather surprised by this. I don't know why, it seems pretty logical to me. If they didn't want him solving his own attempted murder then why not restrict the information?

Anyway, as always the head guy at OCP, or OmniCorp as it's now called turns out to be involved and there's lots of vice and corruption. The film culminates with Murphy trying to arrest the head of OmniCorp, while the head of OmniCorp is trying to get Murphy killed. Lewis is shot (again) while taking out a bad guy that was just about to finish off Murphy, but again Lewis is fine. The head of OmniCorp sends for Murphy's wife and son, and prematurely informs Murphy's wife that he's dead following a seizure. Murphy then shows up at the OmniCorp building. So the head of OmniCorp sends for a helicopter to take him and Murphy's wife and son away, hoping of course that Murphy will be killed before his wife sees him.

This is where Murphy battles a few ED-209s, but he prevails and gets to the roof of the OmniCorp building to discover the head of OmniCorp, his wife and his son there. The head of OmniCorp and Murphy shoot each other, but Murphy's shot is more accurate and the head of OmniCorp is killed. At the end of the film we see Murphy being lowered into a new RoboCop suit and then walking off with his wife and son.

There are things I haven't even mentioned yet. Like the annoying TV presenter guy that Samuel L. Jackson plays. Again, it's not very relevant to the film. And I for one am a little bit sick of seeing Samuel L. Jackson turn up in every bloody film going. Gary Oldman does a good enough job playing the lab guy, but we're not exactly talking stellar performances here, Murphy and his wife are both very wooden.

This film isn't a patch on the original. Currently on IMDb it has a score of 6.7 out of 10, and even that seems too high to me. You can call me a fanboy of the original film and to be honest, that's probably fair. I was 13 when RoboCop came out and I got it on video that Christmas. I was just at the right age for it to blow my mind. And it did. They didn't have to remake RoboCop, and they shouldn't have. But seeing as it was inevitable that they did, they should've gone for the violence, action and blood fest of the original, and not changed stuff just for the sake of changing it. People my age would've gone to see it, to hopefully have their minds blown again. And the kids would've watched it when it came to DVD anyway. And a new 18 certificate RoboCop would've had a much more lasting impact on them too I suspect.

But as it stands we have this rather weak remake. A remake that 27 years from now won't hold up anywhere near as well as the original film has. Do yourself a favour. Take the money you would've spent seeing this and go buy yourself the original instead. It's awesome. And yes, I am biased. As for RoboCop 2014? I'm sorry, but I wouldn't buy it. Not even for a dollar.

Cat Women of the Moon

On the plus side this film is mercifully short. After watching this you'll have only wasted an hour and four minutes of your life. But it does have a rather abrupt and disappointing ending (more on that later). This particular offering is from 1953, which is apparently during sci-fi's "Golden Age". This film didn't seem all that golden to me, more "goldenique" if QVC was trying to flog it.

The plot basically involves a mission to the moon where the astronauts encounter an ancient race of cat women. That's probably not much of a spoiler when you look at the title. But the cat women are a dying breed, and with most of the moon dead they've been forced to live in a large cave, which somehow has managed to retain the last of the moon's atmosphere. The cat women hatch a plot to hijack the crew's space ship and fly to earth, where they will procreate with the human males to try and rebuild their race. This plot has massive holes in it which quickly become evident.

So we join our astronaut friends just as they leave the earth's atmosphere and head towards the moon. The crew consists of guys with names like Kip, Doug and Walt. And remarkably there's a woman too. She's called Helen. Of course the only mechanical or electrical equipment the 1950's woman is qualified to operate is a cooker, so Helen has been given the role of "navigator" so that she doesn't have to touch any of those confusing dials or switches.

On leaving earth orbit Helen immediately gets out of her bunk, takes out a pocket mirror and fixes her hair. We of course know that in reality Helen would look like she'd been dragged through a hedge backwards, but those 1950's boffins seem to have worked out artificial gravity no problem. So nothing eventful happens on the journey to the moon. We learn that there's a bit of a love triangle between Helen and two of the guys (well of course there is), but it's all rather meaningless really.

They reach the moon and Helen decides that they're going to land on the dark side. Apparently this is based purely on a feeling that she has. So they land somewhere on the dark side of the moon and they all put on their idiotic looking space suits. One guy takes his gun and Helen takes her cigarettes with her (well it is the 1950's after all). They all venture out onto the moon, which mainly consists of a few strategically placed rocks in the foreground and some pretty painted mountains in the background. And the gravity of the moon appears to be exactly the same as that on the earth. What a stroke of luck!

So they wander aimlessly about on the moon for a bit. They encounter a couple of big-ass moon spiders, which are exactly like big-ass earth spiders except that they look a tad more pipe cleanery and don't actually move their legs. Helen of course runs away screaming from said spiders, but thankfully the men are there to dispense with the arachnids. Actually I think they just use the same spider again as you never see both of them in the same shot.

Then they come across the entrance to a large cave. Helen says it's perfectly safe so they all venture inside. Another of Helen's hunches it would appear. Inside the gigantic cave they see buildings and structures that could only have been made by an intelligent civilisation, so they start to explore. The buildings and structures look very Roman-esque, but I'm thinking maybe they just managed to pick up some second hand scenery on the cheap.

While our friends are exploring you can begin to see shadowy human-like figures hiding in the background. I would like to point out that at this point we're halfway through a one hour film and we haven't even seen a single bloody cat woman yet. It's just not good enough!

At this point suspicions are raised about Helen's seemingly detailed knowledge of all things moon related. She wanders off with Doug and gets a dreamy, far away look in her eyes. A cat woman attacks Doug and Helen just stands there watching. The cat woman wrestles Doug to the floor and then decides to run off. Helen decides to run off too but in the other direction.

The guys manage to catch a cat woman, or at least they think they do, but she vanishes. No special effects here, they just cut the film. But yes, at this point we briefly see a "cat woman" and I have to admit to being rather disappointed. The women aren't even remotely cat-like, they're just women in catsuits. And not particularly sexy looking catsuits either. No PVC or leather-clad ladies here. But then it was 1953 I guess.

The guys decide to wait for Helen to return. Meanwhile Helen finds the cat women and their leader "Alpha" welcomes Helen and introduces her second in command "Beta". I'm guessing the cat women population isn't huge. Certainly no more than 24 if they're named after the letters of the Greek alphabet anyway. Alpha explains to Helen that the cat women have special telepathic powers of mind control, that's how they've been controlling Helen. But their powers are useless on men, not that they have any of those. Alpha says their plan is to take three of the cat women plus Helen back to earth in the space ship. But of course the cat women need to learn how the ship works. And Helen, with her knowledge limited to that of kitchen appliances isn't going to be much help. The cat women can't use their mind control powers on the men, so they have to find other "weaknesses" in order to glean the knowledge from the men. Hmmm, I wonder what they could possibly be talking about? At this point Helen remarks about her male crew mates "It's strange. I should care what happens to them, but I don't!" Yes, Helen has now transformed into a complete bitch.

So the cat women proceed to offer the men delicious food and to generally look pretty while saying corny lines like "May we serve you, earth men?" and "Do you have a special earth girl?". The men of course seem quite happy with this turn of events. Well apart from Kip that is, who is a grumpy bastard and sits in the corner with his gun looking miserable. The cat women then proceed to glean information about the ship from the other men.

Helen and Kip go off together away from the others. Helen has a moment of clarity and is able to explain to Kip the plan to kill the men and take the space ship back to earth. Helen declares her love for Kip and they inevitably kiss. Then the mind control kicks back in and Helen goes back to being a complete bitch again.

Walt goes off with one of the cat women under the promise of gold, which apparently is everywhere on the moon and not at all valuable. But Walt must show the cat woman the inside of the space ship first, and tell her precisely how it all works. Which Walt does without a second thought. The cat woman then takes Walt to a cave made of gold, where she promptly kills him.

Meanwhile another cat woman tells Doug that he must flee in a rather corny "I love you, yet I must kill you" kind of way. She then goes to see Alpha and confess that she's having second thoughts about their evil plan. Alpha says they must carry out their plan, go to earth and have all the earth women under their control. It's still not clear what the plan is for the earth men at this point. There's obviously some amount of procreation that needs to take place for the cat women to survive, but judging by what happened to Walt I don't think the earth men are in for a good time.

Some other unimportant shit happens (cat women dancing, that kind of thing) and then Doug's cat woman tips him off that they're heading for the space ship. She's killed by one of the other cat women for her betrayal. Doug goes to her and as he kisses her we hear gunshots off screen followed by Kip saying "Doug, the cat women are dead. Helen's alright". Then we cut to everyone back on the ship (minus Walt of course) and everyone's happy (apart from Walt and dead cat woman of course). The rocket ship takes off and heads home to earth. The end.

This film was rather corny, predictable and unexciting. And I made the dreadful mistake of only writing half of this review, which meant I actually had to go back and watch this thing for a second time. I think this film ticks a lot of the stereotype boxes, especially with regard to the roles of women and the attitudes towards them at the time. It's a mildly entertaining watch for an hour, but it clearly hasn't stood the test of time. The title of the film promised so much, and yet managed to deliver so little. Yes it was only 1953, but it could've been more interesting, more dramatic, more sexy, more everything really. Shame.