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(Review originally written at 7 July 2010)

Things that makes this movie stand out from any other '50's science-fiction production are its high production values and clever writing. It's not a typical science-fiction movie but one that takes on a movie scientific approach and requires some thinking as well.

I was quite surprised by the way this movie looked. It's set almost completely on a strange far off planet and the movie its look did really bring this across, as well as its futuristic feeling and look to it. This movie did obviously cost some money to make and had some good looking set and set-pieces in it as well as some surprisingly great special effects. some of the stuff still looks far more convincing then some of the CGI effects now days (take a note Hollywood).

Thing that this movie also did was launching Robby the Robot's career to stardom. Really, has there ever been an Hollywood-prop that has been used some many times over and over again, over the decades. He was constructed specifically for this movie and apparently functioned so well that it never got destroyed and recycled over and over again in movies, until the time that he was being cast as a novelty and became quite well known.

But of course the human cast does an equally great job in this. It was one of Leslie Nielsen's very first movie roles and he very well shows his range and capabilities as an actor in this movie. It was also a real pleasure to watch Walter Pidgeon in this, who at the time already had 2 Oscar nominations behind his name.

I wish I could say that this movie was a perfect, early science-fiction classic but to me the movie is still lacking a bit too much. Thing is that this movie just isn't always the most exciting thing to watch. Things get still spiced up a bit at times with some humor but overall the movie is still being a bit too blah at times. The scientific approach of this movie only works that far but is not enough to entirely carry this movie to great heights and make this a consistent good, compelling, interesting one. Some more action and some better handling of the movie its mystery would had probably done the movie very well. But even so, the movie still remains a real good and unique '50's science-fiction movie.

7/10

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About Frank Veenstra

Watches movies...writes about them...and that's it for now.
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