Bad Movie Club: The Humanoids


1979 Italian sci-fi movie

Bad Movie Rating: 3/5 (Josh: 3/5; Fred: 2/5; Johnny: 3/5; Libby: didn't finish and maybe didn't even start)

Rating: 6/20

Plot: Bad guys--the Vader-looking guy, a bald guy, and that woman with the weird hair and cleavage at the center of the poster even though she's not one of the main characters--create a Humanoid out of a James Bond villain (or caveman) in order to take control of Metropolis. It's up to an Asian kid, a robot dog, a braless woman, and an Italian guy with great hair to stop them.

This starts unpromisingly enough with a familiar blue-texted scroll and a space ship that looks suspiciously like a Star Destroyer. From there, you've definitely got parallels to A New Hope, but thankfully, it goes its own direction--its own stupid direction. There's a silly robot dog, the R2-D2 of the show; a naked woman being pierced by a wall of needles because Princess Cleavage up there needs her serum; angelic space mimes with laser arrows; the Darth Vader character showing off his laser hands, jazzy blue hands that shoot blue lightning streaks that would be deadly if he had better aim; weirdly-shaped spaceships; lots of shots of the same four or five Stormtrooper guys (only they're in black armor) dying over and over again; and that Asian kid who has abilities that might remind you of the force. Things never really move beyond nearly-interesting with this, but it's fun to watch Richard Kiel do what he does best--grunt and destroy things and be way bigger than everybody else. Fred described it all perfectly as "Eegahhhhhh innnnnnn Spaaaaaaccceee."

Two questions:

Did Ennio Morricone phone it in with his score for this or was he really trying his best?

I forget the other question that I had.

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