IMDb metadata is runtime 1 hour and 18 minutes, rated at 5.8/10 by 1392 raters.
An asteroid approaches Earth and science is mobilised! With flashing slide rules and pocket protectors, the equations lead the nerd brigade to only one conclusion. Blast it! (‘Haven’t we seen this before,’ whined the fraternity brothers? Patience, please.) But this asteroid uses the Delta Manoeuvre to elude the rocket’s red glare! Oh, oh! It seems intelligence is at work! Then the asteroid harmlessly slides into the Pacific Ocean off Baja California. Whew!
While it was passing over the desert south west (where the aliens get a special discounted rate) an orb split off and seizes the mind of the director of the nearest top secret defence laboratory. Sure. This new zombie had previously led a crew to Mars in ‘Rocketship X-M’ (1950), reviewed elsewhere on this blog. In that picture he was supposed to land on the Moon but missed it and hit Mars. Grounded! Once zombied he engages in silent communion, ever so cheap to film, with….Kronos! Kronos? Kronos.
While his soul is being devoured, his three top minions go to Mexico to observe the asteroid in the ocean. They observe each other, too. All is quiet on the asteroid front, so they get on with mutual observing, until… yes, right on cue a dome appears in the waters, and, no, it is not another water park, but a Kronos factory that emits Kronos 1.0.
People have noticed that Dr Zombie is not his usual self and that Sy Fyian extra-ordinarie Morris Ankrum fails to collect on his bill!
Pause.
Kronos is a big TinkerToy. The trio borrow a handy Mexican helicopter for a closer look and land on the contraption just as it seems to stir, after a long-distance communion with Dr Zombie. They scoot and Kronos sets off, stomping through stock footage from a variety of locales, none of them Mexican. There is no further attempt to share Kronos’s pain.
Kronos sucks down electricity as it goes. It follows the grid to Lost Angeles!
In so doing it by-passes the much closer San Diego, because more stock footage of Lost Angeles is available.
The slide rules flash again, the giant main frame computer from ‘Desk Set’ (1957) flashes lights and what other conclusion could there be! Blow it up. More stock footage of boy toys. The attack of the boy toys does not slow Kronos. If only there had been a wall to keep out the Greasers! Kronos would have then stayed down Mexico way, supping on wattamales and voltstadas.
Somehow Jeff Morrow (after his frontal lobotomy addition in ‘This Island Earth’ [1955] [reviewed elsewhere on this blog] which by the way turned his hair white) figures it out. The Kronosians must have depleted all the non-re-newable energy sources on Krono and have come to Earth to stock-up. He also figures how to stop Kronos with wind farms and solar panels.
Remember ‘Clockwork Orange’ (by the way a giant Jackson No-Prize to the first person to explain why ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is called ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and not yellow or cerise)? Jeff did, and he gluts Kronos on so much juice not even Mylanta can help.
The female lead, who does not even have to scream, finally gets her big line to ask if more Kroni are coming. Jeff said all deadpan, ‘Dunno, but if they are we’ll be ready!’ The end.
Sorry, Jeff, but there was no vote of confidence from the fraternity brothers for that encomium. What we saw was comprehensively unready. The super top secret defence lab was penetrated by a truck driver with a wrench. The biggest scientist was zombied with a couple of flash lights. Mexico was drained of juice in a few hours. Lost Angeles had to be nuked. This is ready?
It is on the cusp between Sy Fy and creature feature. Kronos is not much of a creature, no drool, no fangs, no GOP ugly look, no Twit in Chief leer, no grabbing tentacles, and ‘it does not carry off a woman, as is mandatory in a Real Creature Feature,’ declaimed the fraternity brothers. Nor are the electricity effects up to Dr Frankenstein standards. More like a bulb going out in the frat house than an eye-popper.
On the other hand, the acting is uniformly good. Jeff looks interested in the science de gook, and the Zombie’s inner turmoil is apparent, and Morris Ankrum is also pitch perfect, as always. The director keeps it moving. But the stock footage is not well chosen, nor well integrated. The miniatures for Kronos are nothing special, even for the times.
Interpretions of the symbolism can keep the fraternity brothers happy for hours. Is Kronos, the accumulator of energy, a metaphor for the unbridled consumerism of the era? For the insidious effects of Communism? For creeping managerialism that leaves empty KPI husks behind? For the spectre of technological growth represented in this film by a computer system called SUSIE that adds nothing to the proceedings? Or is a Trojan TinkerToy? Is Odysseus inside?
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