ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

BA_Harrison Nuclear scientist Dr. Cal Meacham (Rex Reason) joins a group of fellow atomic brainiacs at a centre run by the enigmatic Exeter (Jeff Morrow), who turns out to be an alien from the planet Metaluna. Exeter and his cohorts are looking for a way to synthesise uranium so that they can protect their home planet from attack by Zagons, but the large foreheaded aliens also have a back up plan: to make Earth their home and become the master race.The image of a Metalunan Mutant menacing Dr. Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue) is one that has stayed with me since a child, when I collected bubble gum cards featuring scenes from old sci-fi and horror films. Sadly, the film that this unforgettable image came from, This Island Earth, isn't all that great: the first half is incredibly talky and quite uneventful, and the second half is totally pointless, with our hero and heroine visiting Metaluna for ten minutes or so before leaving, having done absolutely nothing!The special effects are also rather disappointing: there's nothing here that Flash Gordon didn't do twenty years earlier, with some iffy matte paintings, dodgy model work, silly communication devices (a triangular screen-really?), and an unconvincing rubbery mutant. The fifties gave us so many genuinely great sci-fi films-Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Incredible Shrinking Man, to name a few-but This Island Earth isn't one of them.

noname1479 I think they should have thrown out the first 30 minutes of this film. What a waste of color film. After that, the film was very good. Exeter was good. Faith D., the leading lady was great. The monster was well done. I like the photography. It was imaginative for the 1950's. What did the rest of you think of the first 30 minutes?

david-sarkies This movie has no point whatsoever. The plot was really thin and it seemed to be more flashy effects that anything interesting. It dazzeled us with lots of explosions and technicolour, but it is 1955, and thus we see though the dazzling effects almost instantly. The movie began interesting, a sort of mystery in which Cal, a scientist working on generating nuclear power, finds some highly advanced equipment in his lab. He is then given a catalogue and from this he builds an Interociter, which puts him in contact with an alien that offers him a job. Cal is interested so he goes to the alien. He travels to an alien planet, with a token female, and goes back to Earth. There is little in the way of a plot, the aliens are not menacing and they get through the obstacles through luck. The main characters seem to bumble through the movie than to get through on their own skills. Personally, this movie is simply dull.There is a small amount of communist propaganda in here, but it is not one where there are lots of speeches. The movie attacks brainwashing, as there is a machine that does it to force people to perform, but the performance of a brainwashed person is much less than that of a free person. There is the alien who has established a headquarters in the middle of the United States and is collecting scientists to help save his planet, but the alien lord wants to brainwash them. Really it seems that they are trying to create a menacing alien force, to mix with the Russians, but they fail. The aliens are on the verge of destruction already and all that Cal says is "no" and that is it.The hidden enemy is a theme that exists in the movie, because the aliens want Earth to move to. Unfortunately, this does not work easy as the alien agent they meet is sympathetic to the humans so they are not as menacing as they could be. Thus to sum up This Island Earth, it is a 1950's version of Independence Day, lots of explosions, little else.

mike48128 A brilliant beginning, with a great sense of mystery about it. Who is "kidnapping" the great scientists of Earth and why? What is the planet "Metaluna?" Once these mysteries are solved, the film loses its luster. You can almost hear the budget drying up, as this is one of those infamous films that almost bankrupted its studio, Universal. So, they threw it together, after wasting over 2 years and $800,000, and finally released it. (Originally released in 3-D and Technicolor.) Color was a major improvement, as most sci-fi at this time, were black and white. Some ambitious plot ideas are never played out. When they finally get to Metaluna, it blows up and it seems too short a visit. But there are death rays, explosions and fire, and boasts the best-looking rubber-suited "Giant bug-eyed mutant-insect monster" of all time. Unfortunately, Mr. Ugly Bug just clumsily lumbers around and does nothing more than scare the timid girl scientist. Hence, the lobby poster, which shows it carrying a much sexier girl, promised a far better movie than it delivered. (Much like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" robot poster.) A giant destructive robot like "Gort" or something else would have heated up the action. It drags a lot in spots, and the second half of this short 87 minute film ends with a slam-bang finish as "Exeter" the kindly giant foreheaded alien, saves the Earth from certain interplanetary war by intentionally crashing his flying saucer into the deep blue sea. All the alien technology is therefore lost. (I think an invasion would have been much more fun, if Earth had burned up, but they apparently ran out of money.) Often ridiculed on "Mystery Science Theater" and elsewhere. Undoubtedly the inspiration for the SNL "Coneheads" who also had those giant,"sexy", alien foreheads.