War of the Planets/War of the Robots

4 stars for bad quality

Every week, my son and I have "bad movie" night, and this particular night was spent watching, "War Of The Planets." It is unknown to me what the other reviewers were expecting when they bought and viewed this Italian "epic" but with the general tone of disappointment, I'd say they expected waaaay too much.
We sat there for the 90 minutes enjoying one of the worst movies ever made. Furthermore, we EXPECTED it to be bad and not the second coming of 2001: A Space Odyssey! Probably the funniest thing about this so-called movie is the fact that the makers of this film probably thought they had a hit on their hands, since it came out around the same time as Star Wars. Well, obviously this flick is terrible to the point of being rediculous and, not surprisingly ended up being a dud.
My adviced to you is simple: for one night, go ahead and pretend you're dumb, put in this dvd, and enjoy some of the best bad film making ever to hit no one's screen! February 2, 2007

"Washington and Moscow have already called me three times"...

...and they request another film since this one is alternately putting them to sleep and making them laugh so hard that someone might accidentally launch a nuke. Boy, those Italians have some way with Sci-Fi flicks, don't they? The story in a nutshell: Brash and undisciplined captain is put in charge of a spaceship investigating some mysterious signals from a previously unknown planet. The crew finds it inhabited by, among other things, green skinned guys who must've missed the casting call for 'Santa Claus Conquers the Martians' and a giant robot that tries to be scary, but comes off more like those old 2XL toys. This puppy is just flat boring for 2/3rds of the run time, and silly for the rest. Ooh, frightening robot with the truck grill face and multiple close ups! Ooh, weird naked green skinned men who live in caves! Ooh, brave astronauts wearing third rate Star Trek costumes with head gear popularized in medeival Europe, weilding metal detectors and flashlights! Ooh. goofy electronic Krautrock soundtrack, if Krautrock was performed by deaf four year old autistics. Why can't the computer use it's robots to repair the circuits? "That's it, that's the one, put it in", the 2XL exclaims excitedly. More like pull out. June 17, 2006

War of the crappy dialogue and cheap effects

I didn't see War of the Robots so this review is only for War of the Planets, which while not the worst movie I've ever seen, is certainly not good. A group of astronauts land on a planet hurtling toward Earth and come into contact with the humanoid inhabitants. They then help them fight the computer that has taken over the planet. The message of the movie, that allowing machines to do too much is bad, is heavy-handed. The captain of the astronaut's ship also has his problems with relying too much on computers. At first glance the effects aren't that bad for a movie made in the 70's but then you remember Star Wars was made at the same time and you understand that, yes, they are that bad.

My favorite scene for the sheer stupidity of the writing is an astronaut doing a space walk to repair a battery on a satellite. The battery cracks and acid squirts onto his space suit. He immediately begins screaming in pain. Meanwhile the captain is saying to him that he has 3 minutes to get back to the ship before the acid eats through the suit. If he has 3 minutes, why is he already screaming in pain? If he has 3 minutes why does the captain have to suit up and go out to rescue him? In the end, it's a nibbling point because the movie isn't good enough to waste too much time thinking about it. March 22, 2006

What's not to like?

"badly dated" - Yes!

"dialogue is often incomprehensible" - Yes!

"and the performances are uniformly languid" - Yes! and No!...

(occasional manic jabbering - Yes!)
(occasional fighting with space zombies - Yes!)

Moreover: great spaceship sets and the great spaceship fashions which characterise Brescia and Bava's finest 70s spaceship nonsense. So these films are in fact wonderful. Unfortunately I've had two different copies of this particular box set, and neither of them would play on any of my machines, so I suspect that the factory/distributor messed up badly. Get these films, but get them elsewhere. November 11, 2005

An embarrassment, even for Italian sci-fi

WAR OF THE PLANETS (1977) John Richardson, Yanti Sommer, West Buchanan, Ely King. In this film by Alfonso Brescia (as "Al Bradley"), astronauts land on an alien planet and agree to help its humanoid inhabitants battle a super-computer that has taken over the planet. Even by 1977 standards, the sets, costumes and special effects look badly dated, the dialogue is often incomprehensible and the performances are uniformly languid. The theme of the film--that man shouldn't become too heavily dependent on machines--simply gets lost in the muck. The Italians were never that good at sci-fi to begin with, but this movie is truly an embarrassment.

One star out of five. February 16, 2004

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