Anno zero - Guerra nello spazio

WAR OF THE PLANETS begins with flashing, beeping, and a toy spaceship floating around. The ship's crew are wearing red swim caps, perhaps to keep space mold from growing between their ears. The ship's computer, known as WIZ, drones on in monotone fashion, much like an industrial fan.

Astronauts leap from ship to ship, probably trying to escape this movie's pull of death. Actions take place for no discernable reason. A man screams as though something is happening. Nope. WIZ blathers on.

Meanwhile, on Earth, some sort of crisis has developed. Mysterious signals, sounding like chipmunks caught in a storm drain are transmitted to the ship. WIZ gives orders. We discover that the ship has an onboard orgasmatron. Even this is boring.

Lasers flash! Sound effects whoop and bloop! Spaceships spin! WIZ yammers on! My God, this is the Marianas Trench of boredom! Crushing tedium destroying our minds! Pray for us all!

This movie is cinematic arthritis, causing agony with no hope of relief! We know that somewhere, someone said, "Oh yeah, I saw STAR WARS. I can make a movie just like that!". This is the film that George Lucas could have made, had his brain been turned into tuna salad.

This, my friends, is sub-sludge without mercy...

I am not a fan of the idea that a movie can suck so much and be so terrible that it can, or should, be perceived in any way that which is positive but, at least in description this movie is an exception, fore this movie is so STUPID that it is "a movie almost awesome in its badness", to borrow a phrase! They actually sift music from other films, horror movies & documentaries mostly, & remade it with something that sounds like a 1950s synthesizer...to add to the soundtrack, which is probably the best thing about the film ironically...

The ending is actually far more climactic than I would even have imagined giving them credit for & is probably the 2nd best thing about the film, and I even concede that the women do look good in their figure-hugging outfits, but (...it's not like they get naked!), nothing is redeemed & there is & shall forever never be no forgiveness for this excruciatingly lame-ass sh!t-pile!!

Despite the fact that they were produced during the same year , "War of the Planets" had nothing whatever in common with "Star Wars". While the former was definitely an "A-Picture", "War of the Planets" is strictly "Grade-Z". The story is nearly incomprehensible, the writing terrible, the acting wooden and the production values about what one would expect in a high-school play. Some cheesy science-fiction films can be so bad that they are entertaining. however, this example of the genre is simply...bad. About all this film accomplishes is to make the viewer appreciate just how good things like "Star Wars", "Star Trek" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" actually were.

The Italians are at it again. Crippled by an incoherent script, this Italian-made space opus is lost in the vacuum of space. The title, minus the word "Cosmos," was used a decade earlier during the very 'mod' 60's. The runaway satellite in that film was child's play compared to this leaky albatross. This film deals, badly, with a more lethal out-of-control planet. The man in charge, the director, had to have been on a three-day coffee break. The extras rush and jump around in a swirl of confusion. Some high school productions are more organized. One actor pronounces the word data as "da-da." When the landing party finds living beings on the planet, they all resemble an army of metallic "Mr. Cleans." Crazy. A few of the female crew members are painted into their threads. And the ridiculous skull caps are definite turn-offs. Future technology is represented by scratchy video monitors and blinking boxes of gyros and lights. Organ music saturates the soundtrack with grunts and groans, piped in from a very dark place. The final showdown pits a rabid crewman against the lead Mr. Clean. Both souls are jettisoned out an air lock. Have a nice trip.

Yup .. this piece of cinematic doodie, is terrible. Why, Oh why, do I have soft spot for crap movies .. we'll never know. At least I'm not the only one. Apparently this is a kind of follow on from "Planet of the Vampires" .. which although low budget, was quite an entertaining and atmospheric film. It's definitely NOT a Star Wars rip off as it has nothing to do with that.

It starts badly, teeters off in the middle, and the less said about the end the better. Best thing to do if you want to see this is with it on youtube .. there's a few places that have it. I certainly wouldn't buy it unless it's on one of those sci-fi movie box sets that contains 100 awful movies.

I won't dwell on the 'story' .. but needless to say it's badly made. Awful script ... if awful even comes close to describing it. One can't help but blame the director for a lot of the dumb performances because .. well .. it's his fault! Editing is okay, considering the crappy material they had to work with.

But hands down the biggest offence in this film is the music score. Ouch!! .. like being rogered with a prize winning cactus. John Barry proved you could have awesome music in a goody film (Starcrash 1978), so there's no excuse to phone in the score like they did here.

Watch it if you dare, or if you're a sucker for bad movie .. like me! This movie could have been saved if the boys and bots at MST3K had riffed it, sadly it wasn't awful enough for them :P

Would be a good film for a crap-fest!