Review – This Island Earth

This needed way more mutant. The first two thirds of the movie are all set-up. A brilliant scientist is lured to a secret think tank of other brilliant scientists who are concentrating on an atomic project of some kind for a guy with a strangely shaped head. Working conditions are more than a little slave-like, because the weird head people are on a tight deadline. Turns out they’re aliens trying to use the most brilliant minds on Earth to develop a new energy source so their home world can defend itself against an aggressive neighbor. Finally in the last half hour our heroes are whisked away to Metaluna, where they see first hand the awful destruction they’ve been called upon to help prevent. Unfortunately by then it’s too late for much of anything besides some random menacing by the Mutant from Metaluna, a quintessential bug-eyed monster. Production values are on the high end of the saucers-dangling-from-strings ilk, the script is weak, but the cast (including Russell “The Professor” Johnson) does what it can. Mildly amusing