Anno Zero - Guerra Nello Spazio |
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 • Italy • 1977 • 89m •   • Directed by: Alfonso Brescia. • Starring: John Richardson, Yanti Somer, West Buchanan, Charles Borromel, Massimo Bonetti, Romeo Costantini, Katia Christine, Daniele Dublino, Giuseppe Fortis, Percy Hogan, Eleonora King, Malisa Longo, Vassili Karis. • Music by: Marcello Giombini.      A strange signal arrives on the Earth disturbing all communications, while an ufo appears above the Antarctic sea. Captain Alex Hamilton is sent with his spaceship and crew to the space outside the Solar System to find the origin of that signal. They reach an unknow planet where a giant robot enslaved a whole population of humanoids by taking their psychic energies. The robot's got his eyes on the Earth, too...
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Review:
And doo doo it truly is. It struck me as I was watching this thing that bad science fiction films seem to have an extra layer of crap slathered over them that one just doesn't experience in your run-of- the-mill bad biker flick. Maybe it's because the folks behind it are often bound and determined to make their entertainment "profound". This piece of tripe can certainly plead Mea Culpa to that, although it misses its mark by a thousand light years at least.
To get to the heart of the matter, this movie displays incompetence in every frame. The writing, acting, directing, editing, scoring, etc. areall absolutely abysmal. To be sure it wears its influences on its sleeve like a badge of honor. As others have noted, the "2001", "Space 1999" and "Star Trek" references abound, but are all introduced to little affect. The editing jumps from one scene to another with little narrative sense, making the story almost impossible to follow. So many elements are introduced only to be just left hanging by the script that it is difficult to distinguish a plot point from yet another pointless scene. With confusion served up in super sized proportions a coherent sound track might have at least helped us to know exactly how the director intended us to respond to what we're being shown. Unfortunately the score is as inept as the rest of the movie. It jumps from classical elements (a nod to Kuberick, I think) to synthesized bleeps and squawks with no apparent relation to what is being shown on the screen. At one point we are treated to an exterior shot of the space ship and a pop song about being in space starts up only to be mercifully cut short after only a few seconds by the editor.
Thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000 the title of worst movie has been taken from "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and bestowed upon "Manos, the Hands of Fate". But at least Manos actually manages to tell a comprehensible story, albeit not very well. This hairball of a movie can't even manage that. They must have changed the script every day on this thing. That is the only explanation I can come up with for it being so confused, garbled and nonsensical. See it if you must but don't expect anything like real entertainment.
Review by thestarkfist from the Internet Movie Database.
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