Slow moving and often boring, this science fiction adventure is about as exciting as watching paint dry on a nuclear facility. Michael Rennie and a monotonous repetitive marching musical score co-star in this cheap and ineffective view of future alien invasions by futuristic creatures. They are basically humanoids turned into robotic controlled beings known as cyborgs whose shear existence by the futuristic government of the world is to do their bidding, usually something sinister. Out of the blue, cyborg Rennie is sent 2000 years in the past to find a scientist (Arthur Franz) and bring them back.
It's the future after military secrets of the past, and scientists Karen Sharpe, Warren Stevens and Wendell Corey (the poster man for cinematic emotionless acting) become involved in the convoluted caper which results in the arrival of two murderous cyborgs later, on their own mission. Out of the blue, there's a teenage get together ask Corey's house where they are dancing to an instrumental rock song, just an excuse to stop the story cold and appeal to the core audience that this was meant for, probably at drive-in's.
While Sharpe is lovely and sincere, she seems out of her element with all of the technical mumbo jumbo, and Corey barely cracks an emotion in his betrayal. There's plenty of action and chase sequences during the last half, and it's interesting to see Rennie playing the antithesis to his character from "The Day the Earth Stood Still". But the writers seem so proud of themselves coming up with something so pretentiously intelligent that this trip ends up being more of a joke than had it's been done with intentional camp. Svi Fi fans we'll have fun pointing out its shortcomings as well as its originality, but I found it to be somewhat of a pretentious bore.
It's the future after military secrets of the past, and scientists Karen Sharpe, Warren Stevens and Wendell Corey (the poster man for cinematic emotionless acting) become involved in the convoluted caper which results in the arrival of two murderous cyborgs later, on their own mission. Out of the blue, there's a teenage get together ask Corey's house where they are dancing to an instrumental rock song, just an excuse to stop the story cold and appeal to the core audience that this was meant for, probably at drive-in's.
While Sharpe is lovely and sincere, she seems out of her element with all of the technical mumbo jumbo, and Corey barely cracks an emotion in his betrayal. There's plenty of action and chase sequences during the last half, and it's interesting to see Rennie playing the antithesis to his character from "The Day the Earth Stood Still". But the writers seem so proud of themselves coming up with something so pretentiously intelligent that this trip ends up being more of a joke than had it's been done with intentional camp. Svi Fi fans we'll have fun pointing out its shortcomings as well as its originality, but I found it to be somewhat of a pretentious bore.