Review of Saturn 3 (1980) by Tim S — 13 Feb 2014

Saturn 3 caught my eye for its 3 lead actors as well as the fact that it was one of the first films to be nominated for the Golden Raspberry award for Worst Picture. And I simple just had to determine for myself if it was that bad.

I've honestly seen a lot worse, but I can say that Saturn 3 is in fact fairly had.

It has a simple plot which could have made it a decent science fiction thriller, but it's a bit close to the 1972 sconce fiction film Silent Running, only with the environmental theme replaced by a killer robot one. Still, Silent Running had superior visual effects and better acting while Saturn 3 has a lot of poor quality models and cheap visual effects combined with bad acting.

It's more very derivative of the film Alien in terms of the story, but it again lacks the acting and effects that Alien had. It also has no suspense or thrills whatsoever in it, and save from a convincing setting a decent production design and costumes, Saturn 3 proved to suffer at the hands of cutbacks due to ITC Entertainment going over-budget and over-schedule with the creation of the notorious box office flop Raise the a Titanic and under the low point of Stanley Donen's career as a director.

The story lacks tension, action or drama and it is paced slowly. At least it doesn't run for an excessive length.

The visual effects in Saturn 3 are too poor. You can obviously tell that most of the scenes are comes with really small models filmed up close as if to look big without succeeding once. Some moments are decent but the majority are notably poor.

And there just really isn't any fun in the film, and the actors have no determination for what they're doing.

Kirk Douglas puts no charisma into his role. He delivers his line without any passion or strength, and since he is considered one of the greatest male actors of all time, the same actor who have an incredible lead performance in the 1960 spectacle Spartacus, this is seriously disappointing. Saturn 3 is arguably the lowest point in his career as a leading man, and he has no charisma in the film.

Farrah Fawcett's performance is weak. She doesn't ever have a sense of belief in her emotional state or reactions to stimulus in the film. This is especially notable when her character Alex finds that her dog Sally has been murdered and she emotionlessly hyperventilated until screaming suddenly when Hector picks her up. None of it is believable, and it all just feels like a cheap attempt to capitalise on her attractiveness, which is also supported by the fact that she appears topless in the film briefly and constantly wears revealing space suits. There is no real acting in her, just a lot of strange bodily actions.

Harvey Keitel is no better. All he brings to the film is tight green leather pants and a haircut that says "virgin for life". He brings none of the acting talents that would later score him ah Academy Award nomination to his role in Saturn 3 and so it seems like he is nothing more than a name in the film, also because he has minimal screen time. Plus, even though Stanley Donen cast him, he was displeased with Harvey Keitel's Brooklyn accent and had British actor Roy Dotrice dub him which is just ridiculous and damaging to the film. There is little logic behind why he was cast in the first place if this was the case, and that reminds us that Stanley Donen really did not know what he was doing.

All in all I guess Saturn 3 could have been a lots worse, but in hundreds of ways it could have been better.