WARNING FROM SPACE (1956)
Tagline: Nope
(Sci-Fi, Drama, For The Love Of Humanity) [G]
Note – This movie wasn’t given an MPAA rating, but if it was it would get a G.
It's hard to open people's eyes to the potential danger. Only one country on Earth has experienced the terror and destruction of atomic war, and that country is Japan.
In this one, alien creatures from a planet on our sun's far side called Paira, decide it’s high time they warn earth about a planet that is approaching it. To avoid the extinction-level event, Japan needs to convince the world that there are not only starfish-looking aliens with one eye who know what’s about to happen, but also that it’s a great idea to launch every weapon they have at this oncoming planet to avoid annihilation.
First off, this movie was made by the same studio well known for its GAMERA series. This was NOT a kaiju film in spite of the posters indicating that it was. Additionally, this was the first-ever sci-fi movie made in color in Japan. I also bet if you look hard enough you can find one of these giant starfish alien suits with one eye at a Goodwill or at least find the material to make one. That is how hysterically wonky they look.
I guess the storyline in this movie is okay. It’s another movie in a fairly small group where the aliens are good, once they get done scaring the crap out of everyone. This falls in line with STRANGER FROM VENUS, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, THE COSMIC MAN, and some others. The acting is also okay, but I am not familiar with any of the other movies this cast was in. Toyomi Karita plays a bit of a dual role I won’t give away, but she definitely gets the most lines of any of the characters in the film.
The pacing of this film is really off-putting. We get plenty of alien scenes at the beginning, but it cuts to nearly nothing after that. Because of this things really drag after the first 20 minutes and there just isn’t enough to keep this thing going. I think when sci-fi fans look back on this one they are focused on the fact that we have goofy-looking starfish aliens and they are fun, but aside from that, the rest is pretty boring, which means I had an hour of this flick that I just didn’t care about. We also had zero character development going on. That isn’t always necessary in sci-fi, but the overall “we just need to give world peace a chance” message isn’t quite enough to keep my attention.
The score itself is good and some of the effects are fine. The actual starfish alien costumes do look very elementary school play-ish, but they made me laugh which is not a bad thing. Unfortunately, that is the only remotely cool thing about this movie.
Overall this is a 2 out of 7 for me. I think most studios could have done better with an alien starfish story.
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