Sonicman

This is two movies in one. The first is a 1-star bad movie and a 10-star RiffTrax movie with the voice-overs. How do you rate a movie like this?

The actors involved try hard, but in the end the plot and script drag it down. Cameron Mitchell as always delivers a fine performance in low-budget movies given what he has to work with.

Is it worth watching? To me on it's own, no. But with the RiffTrax crew working their magic was well worth my time and quite entertaining.

A Spanish ripoff of the original Superman movie, the movie is cool for the first two minutes while the exposition for all of this is formed. Then, it happens: the music. The tinny, cheesy music. Then the obviously FAKE blue-screen work that shows our hero as flying through space. Then the movie falls apart as good FX work (laserblasts) and bad FX (the Puma Man flying sequences..no lie!) mishmash together with inadequate dubbing and Cameron 'Mitchel' (?) laughing like his helium was too concentrated. However, the stinger for this episode is when Supersonic Man decides to lift up a bulldozer and, thanks to the amazing art of editing, is shown to pick up this horribly fake particleboard recreation of a bulldozer. It's not even painted well to cover up this shoddy job. Then the regular viewer will lose all respect and this movie will go back to the comedy section of your local Hollywood Video and lay there until Hell freezes over. But if you are a lover of bad movies, this one is a must. If you loved 'Puma Man,' this is FAR more entertaining. Go knock yourself out. The costume of Supersonic Man is quite interesting, unlike the rest of this movie.

It says Spain everywhere on the page. Film locations, where most of the cast and director are from. Takes 10 seconds to see it. Nothing surprises me anymore...Anyway this is a SPANISH made knockoff of Superman by one of the more ambitious B movie directors I can think of, Juan Piquer Simón. This director also did the ET knockoff better known to MST3K fans as Pod People. A little boy and his love for Trumpy. Yeah...

Aside from Pumaman, I dont remember Italian studio production companies by this time willing to try a movie with much special effects. They were mostly obsessed with trying to make Mad Max, Road Warrior, Escape From New York, Warriors knockoffs (i mean homages). They are less reliant on effects and expensive locations, same reason they were so good at making Westerns. I think Italian filmmakers learned not to try special effects on this scale after War of the Robots.

This movie is overly ambitious given its financial limitations. All the dialogue is dubbed in which was standard practice in European moviee back then. The star is Cameron Mitchell and the male lead actor's mustache. His character loses the mustache when he morphs into this large pasty skinned expressionless guy in tights.

There are moments of comic relief that mostly gave me a puzzled expression than a laugh. I am not entirely sure what Dr Gulik's world domination plan is but Cameron Mitchell does get to quote Shakespeare and have some overly dramatic scenes as the villain. Some long scenes like his dinner with the scientist he elaborately kidnaps in the first act then doesn't do much with him when he is around are just excuses for dramatic speeches. With so much technology at his disposal, you'd think he'd give the kidnapped scientist sodium pentothal or at least a mind altering brain ray to force his collaboration instead of endlessly trying to kidnap his daughter. I suspect Cameron Mitchell did this movie for an all expense paid vacation in Spain. It is better than other Cameron Mitchell movies he was doing by this time like Frankenstein Island but I did like Cataclysm which is about a demon returning to earth so he can act like a jerk.

It just seems logical that the Italians would have made something along the lines of Superman as they often do versions of successful films such as Jaws, Star Wars and Alien. I had just never really seen any like I had the others; however, I have seen one now, Supersonic Man! Yes, he looks super built, but his costume definitely needs more work and his alter ego is played by a completely different person. Though the plus side on that is that it is harder to discover his identity, but the villain seems to think it is one and the same guy. And speaking of villains, never before has the screen seen a villain such as the one here, who seems to have no real goal beyond boring an old man to death with his discussions.

The story, Supersonic Man is dispatched to Earth because something so dastardly is about to go down that it will cause ripples throughout the universe! Actually, I think whoever gives orders to Supersonic Man really oversold the threat, not sure the villain would have been too much trouble for a normal person to take out. A professor is kidnapped and Supersonic Man under his guise as Paul comforts her and for reasons unknown will search warehouses as Paul who has no powers so that he can get captured!

Supersonic man seems to have rather vague powers. Seems he has super strength and speed sure, but also the ability to turn a gun into a banana... Suffice to say, he is nearly indestructible to lava, freezing cold and bullets so it makes little sense they they try a flame throwing slowly walking robot at him. The only thing that seems to stop him is high frequency sound.

So, this film is rather lame, but entertaining to watch. I laughed quite a bit when a car goes down a somewhat steep incline and just explodes! Then a boat explodes for no reason and then a house explodes! Everything in this film is very prone to just blowing up! The villain is the typical villain of this era, no powers whatsoever and lots and lots of henchmen. Supervillains literally did not start appearing until like the 2000 films and no Batman's villains are not supervillains, just costumed insane villains!

Me and my high school dog pack caught this movie by chance one late night on Channel 44 in the Bay Area. Perhaps by devine intervention, I hit the record button and got the whole film on tape. It provided us and our respective families with endless laughs. We even composed a song/chant out of some of our favorite lines that we would recite religiously in the park at night (This is true San Jose-style recreation!!) Highlights? The terrifying killer robot that displayed the speed and swiftness of a cheetah! That devastating glare of Supersonic's evil nemesis as he monitors his underlings' treacherous deeds. The timeless beauty and personal complexity of Supersonic's love interest, Patricia Morgan. And the special effects -- especially the balsa wood steamroller, realistic-looking toy helicopter and the seamless camera work the director achieved whenever Paul morphs into Supersonic. To the uninitiated: May the forces of the universe be with you in your quest to see this movie!!