Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

zardoz-13 "Adventures of Captain Fabian" director William Marshall's 1961 science fiction saga "The Phantom Planet" starts out adequately enough as an exploration epic that degenerates into utter hokum once a silly, canine-looking monster creates chaos. Scenarist Fred De Gorter of "Dayton's Devils," Fred Gebhardt of "Hell's Bloody Devils," and freshman scribe William Telaak must have read Jonathan Swift's classic novel "Gulliver's Travels" because our stud muffin protagonist encounters Lilliputian-sized humanoids after an atmospheric anomaly reduces him to their statue and tangles with their bizarre system of justice. Until the arrival of the towering Solarite alien, "The Phantom Planet" resembles a routine "Star Trek" episode with our hero contending with the natives. This is another one of those black & white, sci-fi chillers where man meets good aliens from the planet—Rheton--and evil aliens from the Planet Solarite. Not only can the good aliens understand human language, but they also can converse with our hero in English. As the sworn enemies of the Rhetonians, the Solarites (they hail from a satellite planet of the sun) generate a modicum of suspense. They want to appropriate the Rhetonian technology that enables Rheton to control gravity. Actually, the filmmakers could afford only one Solarite, and it behaves like a beast-on-the-rampage when it abducts one of the two sexy gals that spark jealousy between our hero and a prominent Rhetonian. Despite its low-budget and inferior special effects, "The Phantom Planet" boasts some respectable but spartan production values. Marshall and his infuse the narrative with enough melodrama so it isn't entirely predictable. The background history of Rheton is comparatively illuminating."The Phantom Planet" opens with a launch countdown, and a colossal nuclear fireball mushroom cloud (probably one of the Bikini explosions) follows. Pretentious narration that foreshadows the plot ensues. "Since the splitting of the atom a few decades ago and through his God-given genius of science, man at last has succeeded in penetrating further and further into the unknown vastness of space. The Moon has become the launching base for advance exploration. From this pivotal point, astronauts at the risk of their lives, set out to conquer Nature's mysterious forces. Yet, many questions remain unanswered. What is the Earth in relation to the inconceivable number of other worlds? Or is he a mere unimportant piece of driftwood floating through the vastness of the universe. Could there be life similar to ours on other planets? Is it not possible that atmospheric conditions of relative environments control their shape and forms? If so, would they be giants or could the opposite be true? Could their intellect have reached a scientific level far above man's dreams. What then will the future reveal?" As the narration concludes, a sleek U.S. Air Force spacecraft that resembles a ballpoint pen streaks through the galaxy on a reconnaissance mission.The year is 1980, and two Air Force recon spaceships from the Space Exploration Wing on the Moon have mysteriously vanished. Authorities suspect each must have crashed into a fast-moving planet. Astronaut Captain Frank Chapman (Dean Fredericks of "Utah Blaine") embarks to investigate the so-called 'the Phantom Planet.' During an asteroid shower, the Pegasus IV is damaged. Chapman and his navigator, Lieutenant Ray Makonnen (Richard Weber of "12 to the Moon"), are making repairs when something zipping through space punctures Chapman's air supply. Makonnen sacrifices his life while getting his unconscious superior back inside the Pegasus IV. Makonnen is last seen drifting backwards into the void of space whispering the Lord's Prayer. This may be one of the earliest asteroid showers in a sci-fi film. Meantime, a gravitational tractor-beam locks onto Pegasus IV, and Chapman's ship is drawn into the asteroid and landed without a scratch. Mind you, this was almost fifteen years before a similar scene in "Star Wars." He climbs out of the vessel and sprawls on the ground. Several barefooted, six-inch tall, Lilliputian-like humanoids watch Chapman as he struggles to rise. Incredibly, while he is still in his suit, Chapman shrinks down to the size of the Lilliputians. Later, Chapman finds himself facing a tribunal supervised by the chief elder, Sessom (Francis X. Bushman of "Ben-Hur"), and Chapman is convicted of harming one of their people during his initial struggle with them in his space outfit. Strangely enough, Chapman is not imprisoned, but he is told he will never leave Rheton. Furthermore, the Rhetonians have beamed the Pegasus back into space. This way Chapman's whereabouts will remain unknown. Sessom wants to preserve the secret of their gravity controlling capability to fly through space closely guarded.Sessom suggests Chapman find a wife to spend his life with on Rheton. Two women, Liara (Coleen Gray of "Red River") and Zetha (Dolores Faith of "Mutiny in Outer Space"), are ideal candidates. Despite enjoying all the privileges of a Rhetonian, Chapman finds himself harassed by another Rhetonian, Herron (Anthony Dexter of "Valentino"), because the latter is in love with Liara. Herron trumps up a charge against Chapman, and the they clash in a trial by combat before spectators. Each must hold a handle attached to a rod, and the first man to push the other backwards onto a gravity plate will win. The loser will be vaporized. Chapman has no intention of killing Herron and refuses to shove him onto the plate. They become trustworthy friends. Later, Herron allows a U.S. Air Force spacecraft to land on their planet and take Chapman back to the Moon after a fierce battle with the Solarites when Sessom is injured.Naturally, "The Phantom Planet" suffers from mediocre special effects. Rheton looks like a crispy chunk of fried chicken, and flying alongside it are fighter craft that look like crispy, fried chicken nuggets. Although he cannot be seen in his clumsy, canine costume, Richard Kiel—who menaced James Bond in "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker"—plays the Solarite prisoner who kidnaps Zetha. While this American-International Pictures release is far from memorable, "The Phantom Planet" isn't altogether abysmal.

Richard Chatten 'The Phantom Planet' is an extremely dull and talky sci-fi quickie set in 1980, by which time (as in Gerry Anderson's 'UFO') we Earthlings have established a base on the moon (where the communications officer interestingly enough is played by a Japanese actress (Akemi Tami), although we see and hear very little from her).Most of the music (plainly library material) is actually pretty good. And it's so far, so dull until we eventually arrive on the surface of the planet Rheton (actually an asteroid), which resembles an enormous Chicken McNugget. It's at this point that the film delivers it's one real surprise, which I won't divulge here as so many others have, as it has remarkably little bearing on anything else that follows.The Rhetons' costumes look as if they were left over from a movie set in ancient Rome; while the sets and the duel fought stripped to the waist between the film's two alpha males over the heroine anticipate one of the cheesier episodes of 'Star Trek'. Rheton's elderly ruler, Sesom (Francis X. Bushman) explains the primitive drabness of their present existence by claiming that the ill-effects from the unprecedented amount of leisure time resulting from labour-saving technology were solved by abandoning modern technology and returning to the simple life (late 20th Century capitalism certainly did a good job of licking this particular worry, if little else). Not that we see much evidence of good honest toil taking up much of the time of those Rhetons that we actually meet; all twenty of them. (Maybe all the real work is being done by slaves.) Nor do we see any bookcases, so it presumably didn't occur to the Rhetons to use all that unaccustomed leisure to read or write books. Their frugal existence, however, hasn't stopped them from harnessing "the magnetic forces of Rheton" to create a hi-tech defence system against attacking enemy ships piloted by aliens called Solorites (in scenes which recall the climaxes of 'This Island Earth' and 'Star Wars'), and creating force fields within which to imprison a captured Solorite (played by an uncredited Richard Kiel) and 'disintegrating gravity plates' in the floor to vapourise anyone who stands on them.

William Samuel The Phantom Planet is one of the most boring, pointless movies I've ever seen. Pathetic even by the standard of 1950's B-grade sci-fi, Planet has less action than 2001 A Space Odyssey, with none of that film's originality, vision, or sense of wonderment. Angry Red Planet and This Island Earth are hot stuff compared to this.Like so many other sci-fi schlock-fests, this one begins with endless narration about the wonders of the universe, what man may find as he travels farther from earth, and all those other generalities that sound impressive to kids who haven't heard the same spiel in a dozen other movies. Then we're treated to a boring scene of a rocket crashing into an asteroid that looks suspiciously like a piece of fried chicken, which explodes into the film's title. From there an expedition is sent in search of the lost ship, and the crew's sole survivor finds himself trapped on the titular planet, where he experiences tedious adventures that you will have to see for yourself (or hopefully not).Phantom Planet contains nothing interesting, nothing original, and nothing well done. The plot is nonsensical and shoestring thin, even with a tacked on romantic subplot. All the characters and dialog are off the shelf, and all acting is wooden. I doubt the actors could have shown less emotion or been less believable if they'd been reading their lines off a sheet of paper. And no expense was taken on the special effects, which would have been underwhelming twenty years before this was made. The monster is on par with Ro-Man from Robot Monster, the flaming meteors appear to be flaming wads of newspaper, and the spaceships are clearly children's toys.As a result of these shortcomings, none of the scenes generate any excitement; not the asteroid field scene, not the first encounter with the tiny natives of the mysterious planet, and certainly not the ridiculous Duel of Raytar. Even the hallucinations are boring. The only part that provides any amusement is the explanation of the Phantom Planet's scientific phenomenon, and then only for the sheer incredulousness it generates. Even Flash Gordon had better science than this.So the whole movie is a meaningless snooze fest that couldn't entertain anyone with the intellectual capacity to read this review. At the very end, as the narrator intones, we see the words 'The Beginning' appear on screen. I think we can all be thankful that this prediction did not come true, and that nothing was ever heard of the asteroid/planet/fried chicken piece again.

Bill Barstad Ah, middling sci-fi. There's so much of it. This one features Richard Weber in a minor role as the hero's copilot delivering this stultifying line in the first act: "You know, every year I become more and more convinced that it's wisest and best to focus on the good and the beautiful." In the only other movie in which I've seen him act, 12 to the Moon, and in a much larger role, he again gets to deliver bad lines, but that movie is packed with bad lines. I don't think any other actor could have made Weber's lines come across as anything but idiotic, but being such a bad actor, they made his scenes memorable howlers in both movies.Otherwise, the acting in good enough. The movie has a wild and stupid story, cute young women, a fight over one such woman, and goofy-looking aliens, all seen in a number of films from the era. I think it all started with "Cat-Women of the Moon". I like it because of the women, it doesn't bore, nostalgia, and the inadvertent humor.If you can't see that sometimes what's bad in movies is funny, you have my pity as you'll never be able to fully appreciate what they have to offer. These things were funny to audiences at the time, and still are.