L'umanoide

....Which is pretty much the only occasions I'd watch this film.

Honestly, this film is one long collection of laughable clichés. More than Star Crash, and that is a feat of some magnitude.

The incredibly poor special effects. Yes, it was 1979 and this film was a low-budget spaghetti sci fi flick, so I suppose we could forgive it for this. Almost.

The incredibly laughable reuse of models and costumes from other sources which shall remain nameless to protect them from comparison.

The painfully repetitive soundtrack, more like a collection of notes strung together.... I can't believe Ennio Morricone was responsible for it.

The stunning range of Richard Kiel's acting. He must have been getting mightily sick of playing the invincible, monstrous giant by this stage. Normally nobody would play the role better, but his rampage through various faceless soldiers is so stupid as to elicit more laughs than fear.

And then there is Marco Yeh as Tom Tom.... It doesn't come as any surprise to me that this is the only production to feature him listed on IMDb.... At least he didn't have to wear the stupid costume Ivan Rassimov was made to suffer.

But gawd is it funny as hell....

With Aldo Lado (Night Train murders) directing, Antonio Margheretti (Cannibal Apocalypse) on special effects, Enzo Castellari (Bronx Warriors) as second unit director, and a Ennio Morricone soundtrack, you'd think The Humanoid would be the greatest Italian Star Wars rip-off ever made, but you'd be wrong. Because that's Starcrash.

This one seems to be handicapped due to the amount of talent behind the camera. It's all well and good, but where's the insanity? Apart from the last half hour there.

Story wise, we've got Ivan Rassimov (Last Cannibal World) as a guy who bought Darth Vader's helmet at a car boot sale wanting to get revenge on his big brother via Arthur Kennedy (from goat arse licking film The Antichrist), who wants to kills Barbara who is a teacher to Tom Tom, a sat nav provider with psychic powers. Arthur also keeps Barbara Bach (Street Law) alive and she's Ivan's missus or something.

On the good guy side, there's Leonard Mann and Richard Kiel. Now Richard seems to be a good guy with a robot dog when he's got a beard, but when Arthur Kennedy gets a hold of him and removes that beard, Richard gets a bit killy and starts wasting everyone. This goes on for quite a while I'm afraid and I was almost losing patience with the film at this point, but then Tom Tom turns up and who cares...

So eventually the film gets around to the big battle bit at the end which is more enjoyable than what went before it. Loads of explosions, robot arse gravy, decapitations and all that jazz. Look - it's on Youtube. If you like Italian sci-fi (a seemingly random genre for the usually dependant Italians) then just watch it...

Valentino Valentini is named in the credits, but I don't recall seeing him.

Also, Italian cinema is now like watching Dad's Army 20 years ago...it's a case of who's alive and who's not - Not alive in this film as of today - Richard Kiel, Arthur Kennedy, Ivan Rassimov....sigh

I actually enjoyed this more than the better known Italian Star Wars rip-off, STARCRASH. Though it's seldom as hilariously awful as STARCRASH, it is what it is far more CONSISTENTLY. In other words, if you're not charmed by the first 10 minutes of this movie, you're not likely to like any of the rest of it either. The odd thing is that - aside from one early scene in which a vertical bed of nails penetrates a nude woman - this movie seems to have been made for kids. Is it possible that there are two versions, one of which is absent that particular scene? Everything else - from the cute Robodog, to the silly music (via Morricone, no less!), to the dime store moralizing, to the lovable gentle giant (Richard Kiel), to the magic kid from another planet - absolutely screams "kiddie flick".

As an undiscerning child of 8, still high on fumes from Star Wars and consumed with a voracious appetite for anything to do with spaceships, laser guns, and cute robots, the TV-aired trailer from The Humanoid produced the desired effect: I nagged myself and a friend into being escorted to the local cinema by my dad. Through those eyes, the movie provided a suitable fix, despite feeling a little flat over all. But hey, it had a cute robot dog, space ships and lasers all the way through! Thirty five years later things appear very different. In fairness, the technical quality of the DVD copy I purchased is pretty poor but it's clearly not an official release. However, there are some details in the extraordinarily poor production values that with even with the most generous and forgiving attitude I can't ascribe to anything but a cynical disregard for quality by the director. Another spectacular facet of this movie is how many scenes appear to be nothing more than Sweded versions of identical scenes in Star Wars. The recipe for this entire project can be summed up as:

1> Select some iconic scenes from Star Wars.

2> Reproduce them using funds from coins found down the back of the sofa.

3> Wrap a vague plot around them - don't worry too much about the details.

4> Fill the gaps with mystical nonsense - if it is spouted by an Asian child then it becomes all the more reasonable.

5> Season with a liberal sprinkling of cleavage and nipples to taste.

Overall it's worth watching for the lulz, and as a cultural artifact which demonstrates how desperate everyone was to cash in on Star Wars at the time. Watching that pathetic robot dog attempt to emulate R2D2 as it hobbles across the dessert is really quite tragic.

In keeping with the tone of the previous reviews, it has to be said that I will re-watch this classic of terrible cinema, which is more than I can say about The Phantom Menace.

P.S. "Star Wars meets Monkey" is an entirely accurate summary of this movie that sadly I can't take credit for. A friend of mine described it thusly after watching chunks of it on You Tube.

THE HUMANOID is one of the most entertaining movies ever made. Aldo Lado has supplied me with some of the most bizarre and twisted images you could never imagine. You know you're in for a treat when the main character is named Golob, played by a bearded Richard Kiel and he's got a robot-dog in his crappy spaceship. You somehow can't go wrong from there on.

The Tom Tom character is also doing his to make THE HUMANOID one of the ultimate Italian science fiction epics, beware his excellent wisdom. Barbara Bach and the gigantic Kiel was quite the team in the Seventies, and as always she's looking hot in this; "The story of Golob turning Unfriendly and Unstoppable". I love Golob and his dog, I wish to see more of them. Why weren't there any sequels?

Ahhh! The glory of Italian Cinema of the Seventies and Eighties continues. These directors and screenwriters seemed to have no limits in ripping off the Hollywood big-seller. There's still plenty of somewhat obscure masterpieces to be discovered, I'm glad I found this one.