Author name: M Pax

What to say about this one… First, I watch these movies so that you don’t have to.

Husband Unit and I both thought the lead actor, Colonel Tom, was annoying and creepy. If I met him in real life, I’d run away. Fast.

The special effects aren’t spectacular, and the storyline could have had some twists. It was a pretty straightforward plot. Rocket returns from Mars, female astronaut is too hysterical to speak, and something green is growing on Tom. We find out what happened on Mars via a flashback. As far as flashbacks go, it was better than most. It was the main story, and it was on Mars, so it wasn’t the boring kind.

What happened on Mars was pretty interesting, once we got past the boring bits of staring out the window a lot. There were some great monsters. I especially enjoyed the bat/rat/crab thing. The Martians then sent the rocket away with a warning not to come back. We had that warning from the Moon in another movie.

The acting was better than usual, the plot would have been better if they had emphasized the interesting bits and gotten rid of the boring parts, and the effects were below average. There was the helmet with no faceplate thing going on, too, and the spacesuits didn’t look like they’d protect anyone from a breeze.

The monsters take this from a 4 beer rating to a 3.5. If there had been more aliens/monsters, or dancing, or funny bits, the rating would be higher. Those cheesy moments were missing, however.