Review of Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) by Tim H — 05 Jan 2008

Cornball as hell, but not that bad. I also have to say that it is envigorating that Adam West has a movie that is in the Criterion Collection. Too bad that he's only in the movie for a total of five minutes.

Apparently, Byron Haskin is one of the minds behind The Outer Limits. I can't say I ever watched The Outer Limits. If anything (and that is very little), I was a bigger fan of The Twilight Zone. I couldn't tell you which blatently plagiarized from one another, but I can't give my thoughts behind the show. But this really was entertaining, if not totally goofy.

I am happy that Criterion released the special feature regarding the science behind this movie. Apparently, 1964 was a extremely "what" era for science because no one had any clue what was going on in terms of space. Or just science in general for that matter. But that made it all the more enjoyable. (Admittedly, there's some stuff that directors should have figured out. Really, a planet is farther away from the sun and you think it's covered in fire, guys? I guess it IS red...).

This story really is the Robinson Crusoe story just moved somewhere else, which leads to one of the film's major problems. Apparently, in this world, the astronaut has read the novel which parallels his own predicament and references that. I kind of have qualms with that. It's bad enough that the film references the source and that an audience already has that information, but the allegory is spoonfed to us throughout. Sorry, just not a fan of that decision.

I have to mention the special effects as well. I'm going to put this out there. I kind of like them. Yes, there's a lot stolen from War of the Worlds (Not the Tom Cruise version, silly bear), but it looks really nifty and stylized. The effects, by no means, are good. Rather, drawings represent flying saucers and planetary landers, but they're "World's Fair-esque", so I totally dig them. Now this is more of a minor point, but I wish they used the special effects more sparingly. Those blaster ships always in groups of three? Really? We couldn't get the idea earlier? But the colors were cool throughout, so I thought "pretty.".

I have to leave with this. I'm not usually a fan when Criterion does cornball stuff. Equinox bored me to tears and the "Monsters and Madmen" set was a wild disappointment. But Robinson Crusoe has a little bit of merit, so go them. Give this one a chance and try not to overthink it.