20 Million Miles To Earth
(Sci-fi, Nathan Juran, USA, 1957, b/w)
A space rocket ship crashes into the Mediterranian Sea, with some local fishermen witnessing the crash. Two men are rescued from the wreckage, a ship on it's way back from waaaaay out there. On board was also a container with an alien lizard-sort-of-thing-creature. This creature escapes both the container and the people wanting to capture it, dead or, preferably, alive.
This is actually a very decent flick, nice photography, pretty good acting and not the dimwit dialogues one usually expects from these sorts of movies. Also, the special effects are above average for it's time. Nice stop-motion lizards, not the worst double projection in history, and clever enough not to overdo it, but rather show the good bits and leave the excessive garbage out.
The pace is nice, it starts with a bang, literally, calms down then progressively picks up speed as the movie goes on, until the climax, where it, sadly, falls a bit apart due to the movie wanting the hero to be
everywhere and do
everything, just to really hammer it into our skulls he is the Hero. Ok, I get it, he's the hero, now give the others a chance to be anything but extras and props, will you?
One more thing that pulls this film down from being a real goodie, is the moster. It's not a bad monster, visually, far from it, it's just that it... well... bellows a lot, and I mean A LOT! After the first 30 minutes of non-stop alien bellowing it gets kinda silly, and after another 30 minutes you really,
really want this noisy dino to just shut up, permanently. Too bad really, as the movie shows a bit of sympathy for the bugger, only wanting to be left alone, but is instead chased all over the place by our omnipresent hero and his merry bunch of trigger happy soldiers. I guess they got a headache and wanted it silenced too.
Personal opinion: Way above average, but doesn't make it to the top. The first half or so is pretty damn good, but as it gets busier, it sticks out like a sore thumb how they could use one or two more characters, instead of cramming 20 into one. Beside, that goddamn bellowing really got on my nerves near the end. But ok, even though it's nothing like an A-movie by today's standards, I won't call it an outright B-movie either, more of a B+-movie.