Unfortunately, IT! falls short the same way more recent monster movies some times do and that's by having a bland cast of characters. Our hero in this film is square-jawed, bland Marshall Thompson, an astronaut stranded on Mars who is the sole survivor of his mission. When the rescue ship and its crew arrive, he learns he is suspected of murdering his entire crew, and is on his way back to Earth to stand trial.
Thompson maintains some martian creature is the real culprit, though his rescuers don't believe him. It isn't long before bodies start piling up on the ship, however, and it becomes clear they have an alien stowaway. This is the titular IT! -- a tall guy in a monster suit. But, hey, there's nothing wrong with that, THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD was a tall guy in a monster suit, too, and that movie rules.
So what's wrong here? Well, like I said, the characters are boring. You can't tell one from another and no one has anything interesting to say. They might as well be robots. So, that sucks some of the tension out of a stowaway alien hunting down the crew one by one.
It is a little entertaining to watch the crew's various attempts to fight the monster, and the movie has a cool device where the astronauts are forced higher and higher into their rocket-like spaceship as the monster climbs from floor to floor. It isn't long before they're trapped in the uppermost compartment of the ship with nothing to do but listen to the monster break his way through the floors below. There's also a neat device where one of the astronauts is stuck in the bowels of the ship, communicating with his buddies over the radio.
It sounds action packed, but unfortunately the movie is pretty slow and clumsy. The same material in someone else's hands might have been ground breaking. Instead, this idea was one whose time hadn't come yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment