CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

BA_Harrison Star Pilot is a dreadfully inept, extremely dated piece of Spaghetti sci-fi from the late-60s; very kitsch, scientifically inaccurate, often incoherent, and full of risible special effects, it's hard to believe that just two years separate this from Kubricks's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and that we would all be enjoying the jaw-dropping spectacle that was Star Wars only slightly over a decade later. That said, the film isn't a complete waste of time if you like your entertainment super schlocky...The main reason to watch Star Pilot is (from a red-blooded male's perspective at least) the quality Euro-totty, which comes in the shapely form of stunning brunette Leontine May, who plays scientist Prof. Solmi's sexy daughter Luisa, and Leonora Ruffo as red-headed space-siren Kaena. Both women look great throughout, wearing a variety of outfits so skimpy they could even bring a Vulcan out in a sweat (May looks particularly fetching in her fish-net body-stocking and fur trim ensemble).The film is also worth a gander for its comedy value, the whole shambolic affair being rife with unintentional laughs. Whether it be Luisa's perpetual posturing, prancing and posing (the girl wants to be an actress and that's obviously what aspiring starlets do), the aliens' pathetic robot servants, Luisa experiencing sudden weightlessness (giving a glimpse of her stockings and sussies in the process), the daring space-walks sans safety cable or helmet, the space-ape attack, or the silly time-twisting final revelation that incorporates Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Star Pilot is a gas.

Leofwine_draca A muddled, typically bad, campy Italian science fiction film which is nonetheless a must-see for seekers of the weird and delightful. This is a badly-edited, poorly-dubbed mess of a movie, with a non-existent budget and a story which lacks a decent beginning, middle or end. Yet despite all the flaws it may have (including scenes of astronauts floating in space without helmets!), it remains a largely entertaining space vehicle full of strange creatures and bizarre special effects work.Once the action shifts from Earth to space the film becomes much more interesting as a whole and packs some seriously bizarre situations into the short running time. Okay, so there isn't too much action on view, but we do get scenes of rayguns turning people into flaming skeletons and the 'comedic' effects of anti-gravity on the unwitting human inhabitants of the spacecraft.The presence of two Italian babes (Leonora Ruffo and Leontine May) also makes things easy on the eye, with the former flame-haired girl in a tight-fitting PVC miniskirt and the latter dressed in a fishnet costume (with appropriate frilly bits; remember the kids) for a substantial part of the running time. For the girls, there are plenty of male models to make up the masculine side of the cast, including the presence of peplum icon Kirk Morris (ATLAS AGAINST THE CZAR) in a tight-fitting full body PVC costume as an alien guard. Eagle-eyed viewers may notice harsh-faced peplum star Gordon Mitchell in a one-scene cameo as the alien 'Murdu', appearing on a monitor, no less! Incidental pleasures include a run-in with a planet full of apes (yet this is no PLANET OF THE APES) who run around waving bones like would-be Ronnie Corbetts; the hilarious heavy breathing that first alerts our scientists to the presence of "something" under the ground; the un-politically correct replacing of the robot slaves with some unwilling Chinese men; plus the hilariously mock-serious "dire warning" of the ending which warns of the consequences of nuclear war. Much like the character of Leontine May in this film, 2 + 5: MISSION HYDRA is a pretty but vacuous Italian gem.

MARIO GAUCI Perfectly awful, low-brow sci-fi - which, incredibly, has been released on R1 DVD by Retromedia as a double-feature with the Russian-made BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN (1960) - with the anonymous cast and ultra low-budget making involvement in an already unoriginal plot (THIS ISLAND EARTH [1955]) virtually impossible. Besides, the action scenes are restricted to some silly karate fights (the plot incorporates a couple of Chinese spies) and a very brief outer-space attack by a horde of (men dressed up as) apes! Likewise, the contribution of Euro-Cult favorite Gordon Mitchell barely registers and what's more he speaks in gibberish (standing in for the alien lingo)! For some reason, the comic relief was given to one of the female leads (Leontine May) but her antics are not only unfunny but obnoxious! The other female member of the cast - the alien leader - is played by Leonora Ruffo; she had earlier appeared in Fellini's I VITELLONI (1953) but, by this time, had been relegated to starring in peplums (even if by the likes of Vittorio Cottafavi and Mario Bava) and, here, is even featured in an in-joke when May, an aspiring actress, goes to an audition directed by Pietro Francisci himself and he's introduced as the man who discovered a good many stars of Italian cinema, among them Ruffo herself! Curiously enough, the ending is similar to that of PLANET OF THE APES (1968) but, needless to say, it has none of the impact of that unforgettable scene from the sci-fi classic! I haven't sampled that many Italian science-fiction movies (obviously, I would most like to catch up with Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES [1965]) but did catch Antonio Margheriti's WAR OF THE PLANETS (1965) on TCM - which was better than Francisci's film, but not by much - while in Hollywood late last year.

Gorm This movie was re-released to cash in on the original Star Wars mania. Filmed on a budget of maybe, 15,000 Lira, it is a tour-de-force of nearly every 50's SF cliche' from the greying Scientist father to his luscious, oh-so innocent raven haired daughter in her fishnet bodysuit (with strategically placed bits of fluff) being menaced by Ape creatures to Bruno the Martian "floating" across an expanse of space with the aid of a trampoline (no, I'm not kidding). SEE the mysterious ancient city model filmed resting on a chair! See the twinkling stars! (and try not to notice the wires, swaying in an apparent breeze from an off camera fan). If you love bad films, by all means check it out-it's a scream. I saw this as the bottom half of a double bill with "Spawn of the Slithis" and couldn't stop laughing....