Rocket Attack U.S.A.

Quick checklist: There's a rocket. There's the USA; well mostly Russia. There is a threat of an attack. Guns are fired. Spies do their thing. Soldiers with bad russian accents ponder the term `credibility'. Oh, there's also a bald russian guy who drinks a lot and paws poor American spy girl. A rather heavy American couple part company and he promises to get a tie. Other than, nothing much happens in this good simulation of purgatory. There are a lot annoying BLEEPS and WOOO sirens. Good stock footage of New York, planes taking off, rockets firing. I also loved the rocket which was so advanced it had no shadow.

This movie was great...till it began.

This is definitely the feel-good movie of the Cold War era. What more could you want? Plot contrivances by the boatload, one-dimensional characters, and unnecessary scenes clutter this otherwise noble film about military preparedness during the period when just as many people were scared of Charlie McCarthy as Joe McCarthy. What makes this film truly disappointing is the lack of authenticity on the film makers part. After all, who could honestly believe that you would have ONE Russian soldier guarding your precious ICBM that is aimed at New York City. Further, why would an American agent who can waltz right up to said ICBM, but yet have the slowest fuse on any bomb ever invented? *Sigh* I guess all movies can't be "Red Zone Cuba".

I never thought espionage and nuclear war could be so boring. Watching this movie would give you that impression. What was the deal with the blind guy? At least he didn't have to see this. Skip Rocket Attack USA unless you have the MST3K version.

This movie must be the only terrible movie to be too terrible to be panned on MST3K (which it was...). Did any of these "actors" actually paid for this trash? This makes the 1951 Invasion USA look like academy award material. Who was Barry Mahon trying to kid? How about a worst movie of all time festival with this piece of you-know-what, Monster A-Go-Go, and Manos the Hands of Fate as the headliners? The production was the cheapest, the actors the worst, the plot was stupid and contrived, the so-called facts about the Soviet Union and sputnik weren't. How about all those "foreign" accents, eh? Well Mahon may have gotten the miniscule amount of spoken Russian right as they were spoken by two real Russians (noticed them in the credits).

OK, this isn't bad on the order of say, Monster A-Go Go, but it is still one crappy movie. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957 and pretty much freaked out all of America. This little chunk of dreck is one of the results of that paranoia. Cheaply made, poorly acted, and beyond forgiveness in its depiction of the cold war, this is one huge pile of wasted film.

The background music is too loud, when it's there, and doesn't match what's going on on-screen. There is a mindless narrator that pipes up every now and then and only makes the story more confusing. Totally random characters are thrown in for no reason I could fathom. Example: An air raid siren blares and people are seen rushing toward underground shelters. A blind man wanders slowly into frame and quietly says "Help me", and that's the last we see of him.

Add in a couple reels of stock footage, some horrible accents, extremely annoying sound effects, and animation that wouldn't have cut it in the '30's and you get the idea. A waste of time on all levels.