IMDB runtime is 1 hour and 13 minutes, overrated at 3.5 by 648 cinemitizens.
Genre: Sy Fy and nothing but.
Verdict: One of the first Eye-tie Sy Fy but not the last. Alas.
In the year 2116 Rik van Nutter….[ponder that as a stage name] is assigned by the ‘Interplanetary News’ to visit a space station, one of several, it seems, and do a series of human interest articles, about the crew members, their work, life in space. That might seem a reasonable set up.
Here is how it plays. Rik is an insufferable know-it-all, busy-body, girl grabber, and endless pain. He has barely set foot on the station when he starts telling everyone how to do their jobs, getting in the way, and complaining about everything from the soup to the nuts. (Couldn’t resist that one.) After that he gets quarrelsome.
Even the ever whining fraternity brothers grew weary of Rik at 10 minutes and 05 seconds.
His initial meeting with the botanist sums it up. He astounded that the botanist is a woman. He astounded that a woman is a scientist. He is astounded that a woman is an astronaut. He is astounded that a woman is doing vital work. He is astounded that a woman is content to wear the work coverall that all the men wear. He is astounded….
After belittling her work, disparaging her capacities, and insulting her tastes, he turns on the charm and begins to grab and grope her in his state of astoundment. That was then. But what can one say? Has anything changed?
There are some nice shots of weightlessness.
Though why they wear bikers’ helmets all the time is anyone’s guess. Still the white helmets with the dark sun screens make nice images and were cheap to hire.
The station is on a routine maintenance mission when things go wrong. Right on cue the meteors shower up. In part the accident happens because Rik got in the way, but he is sure he saved the day in so doing. In between pouting sessions he declares his heroism and demands a parade in his honour. He goes around expecting to be thanked. He is royally pained to discover the crew is too busy doing important work to celebrate him.
Never does he ask anyone else about themselves, about their work, or write a note. No doubt to complete his story when back on Earth he will interview another journalist and go from there. Some things never change.
To add colour, so often lacking in Sy Fy, Kmoto is there to make sage remarks. He makes the banal lines he has sound important. This one is not all white-bread. Noted.
More things go wrong and this crew has to save the world. None of them are up to the job so Rik has to do it. Ho hum.
This was director Antonio Margheriti’s first solo foray into Sy Fy.
In this outing he took the English pseudonym Anthony Daisies, but Sy Fyians know him better as Anthony Dawson of the Gamma 1 sequence, reviewed elsewhere on this blog. It was with this picture that Mr D proved he could make a movie in ten days for ten lira, and off he went to do for the next fifty years. His last credit was in 2010.
Skip to content