1959 science fiction movie
Rating: 12/20 (Fred: 8/20; Carrie: 7/20; Bryan: 12/20)
Plot: Four astronauts go to Mars and realize that they're not wanted there. Luckily, they brought both a machete and a boat.
I know it's 1959 and all--many years before mankind would actually set foot on Mars--but having the characters travel with a machete and an inflatable boat still seems silly. This movie's kind of cool for it's use of "cinemagic," a special effect that makes everything pink and red. See the poster up there? When the characters leave the spaceship and walk on the titular planet that is both heavily-foliaged and containing giant bodies of water, the whole screen is this watery hue. The astronautic quartet are stock--there's a smart one, a horny hunky one who looks a little like Bogart and frequently has his shirt unbuttoned, a weak dame who is sometimes in distress, and a goofball there for comic effect. You have to trudge through a lot of scenes where "science" is discussed to get to the giant rat spiders and Peeping Tom aliens once they decide to investigate Mars. The set looks like it's been hand-drawn, and the aforementioned Peeping Tom alien (see the guy on the right side of the poster up there) is oddly two-dimensional, but there's a charm to it all and the reddish-pink does kind of look neat. This is the type of sci-fi that would offend most scientists and more than likely any being that lives on Mars, and it's nothing I'd call classic science fiction or anything. Still, it's actually kind of fun.
Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention that the male astronauts are wearing loafers. Cinemagical loafers!
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