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20 Million Miles to Earth

And they say today's movies are dominated by special effects and paper-thin plotlines. After seeing "20 Million Miles to Earth," I now know where today's CGI-vamped Hollywood got its start. I can't be too unfair to the picture, even though its story is pretty dull for B-movie standards; it does, however, showcase some very well-done visual effects from that most famous of all visual wizards, Ray Harryhausen. ***

The story takes us to Sicily, in a small fishing village, where a spacecraft crash-lands in the Mediterranean Sea, and a group of fishermen and a small boy head out to locate survivors before it sinks. Two men are rescued, though one appears to be badly injured by unknown causes; on the beach after the rescue and sinking, the young boy locates a large canister, in which he discovers an elongated, slime-like mass with a dark figure inside. ***

He then takes his newfound treasure to a local American zoologist traveling through Europe, who watches as the mass gives birth to a reptillian creature that, as we are told, has come from the planet Venus and could aid in the discovery of survival on that planet's harsh conditions. We are also told this is vital because during their trip, the astronauts located several mineral deposits that could prove useful to Earth. ***

But, as many creature features tend to do, the monster, which grows larger by the hour, becomes hostile when aggravated by its surroundings, including a group of American scientists out to capture it, and soon runs rampant through Sicily wreaking havoc on animals, farmers, and even the Coliseum in the movie's big finale. ***

As I stated earlier, the story doesn't really hold the audience's interest as much as its showy effects work does. Even by the standards of this sort of fare, the whole monster-from-space aspect of the plot is hardly original, while the dialogue is greatly underdramatized by actors who don't seem to show much of the cheesy, heartfelt passion for the material that the genre has become renowned for. ***

I did, however, like the special effects for the piece. Even though its appearance is dated in the face of such movies as "Godzilla" and other modern action films involving larger-than-life monsters, the reptile seen rampaging through this film has been crafted with a certain level of care and enthusiasm, and the filmmakers all but rejoice in placing him in front of backdrops of animals running away, or landscapes he seems to be moving through. Yes, all of this is cheesy, but in the end, "20 Million Miles to Earth" isn't aiming too high, and its visuals save the day for those in the mood for what it has to offer.

Not too much to comment on for this release, with the exception of the nicely rendered black-and-white images, and the surprising lack of noise or distraction on the mono track for the sound.

The techniques of Harryhausen's methods, later called dynamation, are explored in the promotional piece for "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad," but it is "The Harryhausen Chronicles" that steals the show. It features interviews with Harryhausen himself before his death, as well as several collaborators on his projects, and tells his life story of his work, which began after seeing "King Kong," and developed through work in his family's garage as he created things like fairy tales, dinosaur shorts, and furthered his imagination. These two interesting features make this DVD worth a purchase for anyone willing to take a look at the beginnings of special effects.