The Phantom Planet

Poster tagline: SEE!!! A 6 FT. ASTRONAUT SHRINK TO 6 INCHES BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES!!! MOON MAIDENS!!! THE ATTACK OF THE FIRE PEOPLE!!! Surprisingly, the poster doesn't lie (as was customary with the advertising of the sci-fi films of the Golden Age), you will see everything that it promises, but in such a lacklustre way that it hurts. The pace s pretty grim and lazily dragging, thanks to a plethora of banal dialogue that deals with even more banal issues. There is a kind of alien race of people living on an asteroid that they have made into a flying spacecraft that they control by waving their hands on glass pots (I can't think of a better analogy), and with the help of a "gravity curtain" they fight against "solarites", i.e. monsters flying on fiery rocks and whipping plasma rays, and whatever they grow among these rocks for their livelihood, I haven't noticed. For three quarters of the film, the actors run confusedly among the backdrops of rocks, the main character – an Earthling and pilot – has his shirt permanently unbuttoned with his hairy chest sticking out, and he’s constantly deciding which of the alien women he prefers for his amorous escapades. But the film does have its bright moments – the occasional cute visual effect, like the first encounter between the big Earthman in a spacesuit (before he takes in a breath of atmosphere and shrinks) and the alien midgets, the fight with the fire monster (a funny two-metre tall monster in a costume with the body of – believe it or not – Richard Kiel, later the villain Jaws from the Bond films), and that's it. The director, on the other hand, doesn't handle the mashing up of individual scenes, so that the actors – every last one of them – sometimes stare directly into the camera without anything being resolved. But after two hundred or so watched sci-fi pieces of the Golden Age, I'm so jaded that I can’t be offended by this and I won't trash it. (14/04/2015)

Such a classic B-movie of its time, which didn't bring any significant story or groundbreaking tricks, but gives you exactly what you expect. And maybe even a little less. It's not too entertaining, it's quite clumsy, but if you have seen more B-movies from that period, it simply can't surprise you that much. And you won't be so horrified either. (22/09/2015)

The beginning of The Phantom Planet is promising, and the scene featuring the repair of the ship's shell in outer space is quite interesting. However, after a while, it turns into a rather uninteresting version of Gulliver's Travels, and there is only talking and some dumb-looking people who are doing the talking. In addition, Richard Kiel is unrecognizable in the alien mask, which is a real shame. (17/03/2022)