Alerte dans le cosmos

What's most striking about this hilariously awful film is that someone actually thought that it was worth putting up money to make it. Two years after Star Wars and Close Encounters, someone actually felt that terrible dialogue and direction foisted upon decent actors like Jack Palance and Barry Morse, special effects out of a high school film class, a cheesily overwrought synthesizer score, and clunky 50's toy-robot villains would make for a worthwhile movie.

I recently saw it with the benefit of fast forward (as another commenter said, the only way to watch this film) and have to wonder if it's really a parody. Everything about it is so stereotypically and perfectly awful, one wonders if the director was pulling a stunt like Princeton physicist Alan Sokal's hoax "postmodern physics" article in a doofy po-mo "science" journal.

But Carol Lynley looks great, as does the Canadian National Exhibition complex in Toronto lit from behind.

In the future, human race sets up colonies on the Moon, when Earth becomes uninhabitable. A madman decides to destroy the Moon colonies with his robots and automated ships and only three people and their robot dog can stop him.

Wow. In the future, the world will be threatened by a cheesy-dialogue Jack Palance in a stupid cape! Who can save us? Awful robots so dumb they couldn't even get a job on "Battlestar Galactica"? It sure seems that way, doesn't it? Thanks to Blue Underground, you can see this film in the finest quality possible. Now, there is nothing they can do to make the movie any better, but at least it will look and sound good while you make fun of it.

What if, just before filming STAR WARS, George Lucas had put his head in a microwave oven and boiled his own brain? Well, this movie answers that question.

From the awesome "technology" on display, to the ultra-fantabulous costumes, THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME is a supreme, intergalactic miscarriage.

Jack Palance plays the megalomaniacal Omus, spending most of his screen time either smirking or looking dangerously constipated. Omus wants to dominate the Earth and the Moon through his wobbling army of trashcan killbots (aka: ornery traffic barrels).

Nicholas Campbell is Jason, a sort of stunned Luke Skywalker on Lithium. Carol Lynley stars as Niki, who must lead her small, red-suited resistance troops against Omus and his robo-dork brigade.

Ultimately, following the "plot" is pointless. It's best to simply allow the movie to wash over you like the creeping shadow of death.

FOR ADDED HILARITY: #1- Groove to the infinite wisdom of the spherical uber-computer, Lomax! #2- Listen to the eloquence of Sparks, the poetry-spouting robot!...

"The Shape of Things to Come" is the second screen adaptation of the H.G. Welles story, after the 1936 film "Things to Come". It stars a few veterans (Jack Palance, John Ireland, Barry Morse, Carol Lynley) and two Canadians who were then up-and-comers: Nicholas Campbell ('Da Vinci's Inquest') and Anne-Marie Martin ("Prom Night" 1980). Bright young Jason (Campbell) and his scientist father (Morse) venture into space with Kim (Martin), the daughter of a senator (Ireland), in a future setting where robot wars have decimated Planet Earth and humans live in colonies on the moon. Their self-appointed mission is to throw a monkey wrench into the plans of nefarious villain Omus (Palance), a power hungry would-be dictator who once studied under Morse.

This one does seem to be mostly disliked, and the reason why is clear early on. This was obviously done on a limited budget, and the filmmaking (direction by Canadian born George McCowan, "Frogs") definitely lacks distinction. This is admittedly minor league fare with low grade effects, and is an unmemorable adaptation of the story, but this viewer found it impossible to actively hate it. It's all appealing enough, ultra cheap effects and all. Even the robot characters, as extremely clunky looking as they are, are endearing in a hearkening- back-to-sci fi-B-pictures-of-the-50s sort of way. The main robot character "Sparks", voiced by Greg Swanson and performed by Mark Parr, is endearing.

Palance and Ireland are just picking up paychecks here. Both Lynley and Martin are simply gorgeous. Martin and Campbell are very sincere and likable. Morse has more to work with than his other veteran co-stars and gives the best performance in the movie.

If you're a die hard science fiction buff, you may want to see it for completions' sake.

Five out of 10.

The Shape of Things to Come is for sure a bad movie, with mostly bad acting, low budget and so on. But if you got strong nerves (hardened by watching a lot of trash movies and shows) you will find short moments of entertainment and fun. Only recommended for those chosen ones who want to watch every sci-fi movie on this planet before entering the next level of existence and who want to test the strength of their nerves.