Long before
the Looney did its version of the swan dive dipping so far below the value of
the U.S. dollar that it made West Coast Canada look like the new Hollywood,
there were other places in the world suitable for cheap film making. Italy was the birthplace of the spaghetti western
that helped create the legend of Clint Eastwood. Like they say, you have to churn out a lot of
crap before you get a masterpiece. This
isn’t a masterpiece but it might be a piece.
Director
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The Main Players
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Cmdr. Mike Halstead
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Lt.
Connie Gomez
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Mr. Nurmi
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Ken, Lieutenant
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Synopsis:
The
commander of an orbiting space station is recruited to become the chief of a
special task force leading terrestrial authorities in the hunt for who or
whatever is responsible for the mysterious disappearances of people on a daily
basis that’s growing exponentially. (Did
I mention space chicks play a big role?)
Review:
Listen
up helium head. Yes friends, the
depiction of your cranium filled with an inert gas is what passes for putting
down one of your friends in jest in this very bleak and boring picture of our
future. In this one, our future looks
like something inspired by Lego and Meccano but without all the fancy
bits. We are supposed to be wooed by the
introduction of some crappie looking monorail thing that’s essentially just a Chinook
helicopter model with the rotors removed and suspended on a wire. What wonders await us?
We
start off in orbit around the earth on the standard sci-fi spinning doughnut
space station where our hero Cmdr Mike Halstead is putting up with an annoying scientist
Mr. Nurmi conducting medical experiments by growing human organs. Nurmi is a solid knob easily rating 9.5 on
the updated Richter Knob scale. This guy’s
mad scientist ego would make Marry Shelly shake her head a few times, and she
invented the best. When you’re on some
other guy’s space station it isn’t advisable to hit on his woman, but Nurmi can’t
help himself when he catches a glimpse of Lt. Connie Gomez. He wants to get together with her real bad,
but not in the way you might think; more creepiness later.
Eventually
Mike will have to rescue her from Nurmi, but in the meantime he is sent to
Earth so he can head up a special task force charged with discovering why
people keep going missing. It’s quite
comical. Incredibly great looking models
wander around with dorky looking guys with black capes and ball caps and
abducting people by shrinking them down to doll size for transport. It kind of makes sense in the end if only
because the close ups are so comical and at one point they rescue a guy when he’s
only half shrunk. Even in the Italian
version of Hollywood there is no shortage of jobs for dwarfs.
I’ll
spare you the ridiculous chase scene where the cars look like bicycles with kayaks
mounted on them, or the idiotic rescue of the Cmdr by flying machines
functioning in a way best described as YoYo drive. Skipping right to the end we learn Nurmi has
a plan for him and Connie involving more than just sharing a few tender
moments. His intention is the grafting
of their two bodies together in a hermaphroditic union creating a super being,
or a novelty act. Either way it’s not a
good thing but Mike manages to stop him just in time. Man I hope they make a remake of this
one. A slight adjustment to the ending
and we would get to hear Arnold say, “Hey Nurmi. Go F@#% Yourself!” Cinema the art form at its best.
Lessons
Learned:
- Space
Stations have the coolest discos with real starlight.
- Lasers
and blowtorches look and work very similar in the future.
- It’s
better than waking up in a motel bathtub packed with ice and missing a
kidney.
- Even in the future airport scanners can pick up the
little people in your carry-on.
- How much to have something enlarged?
- Experimental dance/theatre is just as dumb and
boring in the future as it is now.
- How the hell did Star Trek happen after these idiots?
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