Four astronauts returning from man's first mission to Mars enter a time warp and crash on a 26th Century Earth devastated by atomic war. At first unaware where they are, but finding the atmosphere safe to breathe, they start exploring and find themselves in a divided future where disfigured mutants living like cavemen inhabit the surface, while the normals live comfortably below the surface but are dying as a race from lack of natural water, air and sunlight.
Similar titles
Reviews
The strength of this movie lies with the story. In the world of story-telling, I give this a ten easily. It fully captures the imagination of the viewer and has some really good points to explore and contemplate on. Space is always an interesting subject and if you add time-travel to it anything goes thus this movie. Who doesn't wonder about what things would be like hundreds of years from now? It is impossible to nail this premise down so we rely on any scenario to get us started. This story does that. These men manage to make it to Mars, map it and start back for home. From there, they encounter the unknown and because they survived it we have a story to be told. Another good thing about this movie is the ending which is left open for the viewer to imagine that anything is possible and it leaves you on that note. This movie also draws on the famous and most necessary theme of a "second chance" something every human being must have and craves. Hindsight sets this up nicely as we all discover what does not work and then we immediately want another opportunity to explore again. This is also known as "another bite of the apple" in our vernacular. Without that opportunity to begin again, our ending is guaranteed. The bible refers to it as "insight" and correctly states without it we will perish. Great movie to eat with while watching with a tasty drink and a snack to follow. If this movie was to be brought current and redone it would be on par with Star Trek or Star Wars as we start to explore the planet Earth all-over again especially after its near demise. Include the mutations of all life, survivor lessons and success stories too. The premise remains open-ended which gives it legs. Enjoy
A returning spaceship crew of four astronauts(including Rod Taylor & Hugh Marlowe) find themselves sent through a time-warp into the 26th century, where an atomic war has taken place, resulting in a primitive tribe of men on the surface, and a society of intelligent(but tyrannical) people living below. The astronauts discover that they likely can't get home again, and so must sort out this world if they have any hope of surviving(and dodge the odd giant spider!). Good cast, but silly film with a pulp-minded story and clichés. Still, it is interesting to note how this may have influenced "The Time Machine", "Planet Of The Apes", and even "Star Trek"! (Though they greatly improved on these ideas, and made them more imaginative.)
It is not surprising to see how much mankind's (and woman-kind's) knowledge has advanced over the last 60 years but when you watch this movie you will be struck by the blunders that the writers of this mediocre sci-fi movie made. Several examples include things that were known at the time by almost anyone who had taken a high school biology course: These include spiders on the earth of the future who were the size of dogs, which is impossible given the oxygen rate in the atmosphere and the level of planetary gravity on earth which limits the size of spiders all over the world. Another thing is when the space travelers encounter a spider they worry about it "stinging" them when in fact spiders only bite and none have stings. It is like this throughout the movie which makes you wonder who the technical advisers were and what they were smoking. StocktonRob
I'd actually rate this 6 and 1/2 out of 7, but compared to the movie that came out immediately before it ("Forbidden Planet"), this somewhat derivative production comes off looking a bit less than classic. So down it goes to 6 stars.Some of the SFX in the early part of the movie are poor enough to make a modern day fan of this genre wince (think Rocky Jones "Crash Of Moons" poor), but once the movie gets out of outer space and once you get past the ludicrous spider puppets, things look a lot better and you can start concentrating on what's good about the movie instead of what's painful about it.Yes, the screenplay has more than a little resemblance to "The Time Machine", and some of the "underground scenes" and future costumes are undistinguished, but the actors manage to save it. The intrepid astronauts are practically interchangeable as characters, but they are, as I said, intrepid and daring and admirable, and the actors work hard to sell their lines, and somehow, most of the time, things work fine.There are some enjoyable bits of staging here and there, and a nice climactic duel between the chief astronaut and the villain caveman. There's a believable depiction of human nature (and human frailty) in the far future, and a "Wagon's Ho!" coda that will probably put a nostalgic smile of the face of many viewers my age - that sense that hard work, a forward thinking attitude and perfect teeth will always save the day.Worth seeing once for its own sake.
