Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

soulexpress Captain Frank Chapman (Dean Fredericks) is on a mission to look for two vanished spaceships. He encounters a mysterious planet named Rheton, which can freely travel through space. (As the MST3K gang noted, it also looks like a piece of extra crispy KFC.) Chapman's ship is drawn to the planet, whose people are about six inches tall. As soon he breathes the air, Chapman shrinks down to the Rhetons' height. (Atmosphere controls your size. Don't question it!) While on Rheton, he helps defeat their enemies, the Solarites (who resemble a dollar- store version of the "Star Wars" Tusken Raiders).THE PHANTOM PLANET strikes me as made by people who weren't just looking to turn a quick profit. I'm thinking the filmmakers wanted to tell a story that was not mere formula. Alas, the end result fell short of that laudable goal. While the premise is intriguing, it was severely underused; the characters don't even qualify as one-dimensional; to call the acting "wooden" is an insult to trees; the visual effects are as half-baked as any I've seen in this type of film; the costumes are uninspired to the point of seeming like an afterthought; the Solarite costume (worn by a young Richard Kiel) is just pathetic; and the errors in physics are too numerous to count.Item: When Chapman first appears on screen, he looks at his wrist as if checking the time; but he's not wearing a watch.Item: When the astronauts exit their spaceship to make a repair, they are untethered and walking freely on the ship's wing—a neat trick in zero gravity!Item: As Chapman's ship is pulled toward the asteroid, he is sitting in the left-hand seat; but once the ship has landed, he's in the right-hand seat.Item: The Rhetons are able to translate all languages with voice- tone waves. (Sure they are!)Item: A mute woman suddenly becomes vocal when she gets the crap scared out of her. Speech therapists, take note.

topeka Classic black and white B movie silliness. Pay attention to the "monster" - the Solorite prisoner. That's Richard Kiel, better known as Jaws, and star of many wonderful films.The film begins with an annoying narration. In the first 'action' scene, we are introduced to two characters by literally introducing them. It's on par with that short story we wrote in third grade. Then those two guys get blown out of the sky by an asteroid. After that, the rest of the film is a dramatic improvement. It appears to have been filmed in one small studio with a minimum of sets, and virtually no special effects. Only a kid at heart who loves theater and science fiction would appreciate this small 'gem.' One has to think of it more as civic theater than as a movie production. Phantom Planet took its inspiration from early 20th century pulp fiction and a lot of 'Tarzan' but it managed to fail utterly.

Kingofbad If you like 60's babes, closeted homosexuality and lots of dials, then this is the movie for you. The first 20 minutes is basically your standard spaceship movie, no...worse, cockpit movie. Under the guidance of their crack ground team of hopeless supporting "actors", our hero Captain Chapman (Dean Fredericks) and his slightly more masculine co-pilot Lt. Makonnen (Richard Weber) search for the title "planet", which is actually an asteroid that looks more like a cross between bat guano and dog poo. Of course this involves an eye-feast for all you dial lovers out there. Plenty of switches, dials, VU meters, and meaningless flashing lights to distract you from the wooden delivery of bad dialog. It took three guys to write this turkey of a script which includes the classic bad movie ploy of trying to insert a deeply philosophical line between the mindless cockpit banter and story exposition. Here's a sample, as our co-pilot suddenly receives an unexpected close-up and says, "You know captain, every year of my life I grow more and more convinced that the wisest and best is to fix our attention on the good and the beautiful.....if you just take the time to look at it." To which our hero replies profoundly, "You're some guy Makonnen." Shakespeare would be proud. Fortunately our co-pilot Socrates floats off into space shortly thereafter, sparing us any more of his words of wisdom. Our hero ends up on dog poo planet where everyone is 6 inches tall and we are treated to our hero's POV as he awakens from a stupor, signified by a violent and extremely annoying camera vibration. He shrinks (I'll spare you the details) and is quickly put on trial where his jury is comprised of a row of hot 60's babes who couldn't act their way out of a paper sack. Who cares? His next dilemma is which 6 inch babe he wants to mate with, though his interest in the opposite sex is doubtful. Dean tries to butch up with his best Peter Graves impression but I'm not convinced. First there's the hair. 'Nuff said. Second, he can't seem to button his shirt and is repeatedly finding ways to take it off. Also the one cuff fold is a dead give away, either role them up or leave them down Dean. The director lends a hand by staging a Mano a Mano duel that involves a sweaty struggle to handle a big pole, with shirts off of course. And finally, Dean delivers the most passionless heterosexual kiss I've ever seen. He couldn't kiss a girl if he was paid to...and he was! Anyway, he has to chose between the King's conniving daughter blonde Liana (Coleen Gray) and the mute sexy brunette Zetha (Delores Faith). I'd take the silent spooky girl in a second, but of course it takes Captain Fabulous most of the rest of the movie to make up his mind. Delores is enchantingly beautiful and gives an unexpectedly sensitive portrayal of Zetha right up until she suddenly, and unfortunately for us, develops the power of speech. There is a battle between the monstrous Solarites and the dog poo people during which victory is achieved by means of the waving of hands over what looks like a panel of broken wine glasses, and a Solarite prisoner escapes to terrorize Zetha. The Solarites are remarkable for several reasons. First and foremost are those ridiculous eyes....worse than Killers From Space, and the lumpy heads whose texture appears remarkably similar to the paper mâché walls of the caves. Next is their enormously hypertrophied shoulders which delightfully serve no purpose, and their shaggy coat and boot hair which conveniently cover the margins of Howard Kiel's costume. Only Kiel can silently walk slowly towards you with his arms out like that. What a pro. And finally, what is it with movie monsters that have no idea what to do with beautiful women? They are apparently most aroused by picking them up, just carrying them around, and setting them down again. Our hero of course eventually escapes, ponders his choice of leaving the beautiful babes behind, and blah, blah, blah. And the movie tells us at the end that it's only the beginning. Oh god no, say it isn't so. Great fun for bad sci-fi movie fans like me and certainly bad enough to be funny, but "regular" people would probably rate this lower than my 3 of 10. That's because they are the sort that "fix their attention on the good and the beautiful".

flapdoodle64 This is typical of the schlock era of scifi, the time when budgets, technology and expectations were all low, and drive-in theaters kept demand for product fairly high. The cheese will either put you off entirely, or you will find it mildly charming, as I do.One highlight of this film is the spaceship designs by Bob Kinoshita, who later designed the interior of Jupiter II and the Robot on Lost in Space. These designs aren't spectacular, but are fun and functional. Another highlight is the creative shrinking effect used to miniaturize our astronaut hero...it is not realistic per say, but not nearly as silly as most FX of this era.The script for this film is variously ingenious and silly, but the writer should be commended for creating rationalizations for the cheap sets weak action. For instance, you have a super-advanced race of people who possess hyperdrive spaceflight yet who nonetheless live in rock caves and eschew comfortable furnishings and conveniences...the incongruity is explained by stating that they have adopted a spartan philosophy regarding daily life.Our hero is a sort of low-rent Nick Adams type, but less likable. There is a lovely mute girl as the love interest, thus telling us something about the director's attitude toward women. There is a silly ceremonial fight. There is space battle against an alien race featuring primitive yet creative FX.This film contains no socio-political commentary or other food-stuff for the brain, the only value is for escapism, ridicule value, or curiosity. There are certainly worse schlock scifi, although perhaps this film would have been helped if the writer and director had taken a few more risks, put in something shocking, subversive, or bad taste...this one appears aimed more toward the 12-year-old's at a matinée than at teens at a drive-in.