Moon Zero Two (1970)

Why so much hype?

Best movie of this year hands down!

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I try not to beat up on films that are so obviously products of their time and cultural sensibilities. So I'll try to be fair to this one, because there are things to like about it.As other reviewers have noted, there's a weird tonal "split" in the screen play, and whether it actually works or not depends on your tastes and sensibilities. For me, it didn't work. Apparently Hammer didn't really understand Westerns (they were a British film studio, after all), or "hard" Science Fiction (at least if it didn't have a horror element like "X The Unknown), and here they tried to combine two genres they didn't do well. The results were disjointed and somewhat cheesy in a way they didn't intend. I give them (and the director) credit for trying something different from their usual run of horror and drama.Still, there are glimmers of a good and interesting movie under the kitsch. It does have a sense of humor and sometimes an actor will deliver a pretty good line that's mildly funny. James Olson (apparentlyfresh off "Andromeda Strain") does as good a job as the screenplay will let him, and his performance holds the film together even as it jitters around trying to decide what shtick or tone to adopt next.My biggest problem: the soundtrack. I understand that a lot of reviewers liked it, and that's fine. I liked about 30% of it.But if this screenplay is trying to be a Sci Fi/Western, the soundtrack seems to think it is supposed to be swinging James Bond era John Barry,only with the volume and the drama turned up to 11 and the singers having vocal orgasms. (Check out the title song as the credits roll an entirely unfunny animated cartoon sequence that seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the movie).It would crank up at the oddest times, like when a vehicle was leaving a hanger to go out to the Moon surface. OK, I got it, we're having an ADVENTURE...but if it's "Sci Fi", something a little bleaker and more ominous would be better; and if it's a Western, you'd want twanging guitars and majestic brass and a sense of historic grandeur. But again, once in a while things would calm down and we'd get something actually cool and echoey, something appropriate to being, you know, on the surface of THE MOON.One GREAT line, delivered by a minor character: "No one dies slowly on the Moon." The actor pulled it off perfectly. Plus one star just for that.In summary: "Moon Zero Two" doesn't hold up well, but there's enough "good" in it to leave some room for enjoyment. You may well like it better than I did.

I have nothing bad to say about this movie. Other than the fact it is (as of July 2013) an on demand DVD, meaning it has NO special features (even though the two principals, James Olson and Catherine Schell are still alive to provide an interview and commentary track, and any number of film historians would take about $50 and a shot of scotch to review it). Set in 2021, the plot concerns Olson's Capt. William H. Kemp, an aging astronaut-hero who runs a space salvage operation on the moon where he scratches out every buck for survival. He gets involved with (the stunningly lovely) Schell's Clementine Taplin, who is trying to find a lost miner brother on the far side of the moon. Throw in a no nonsense, do anything for a Lunar Dollar businessman and an asteroid made of sapphire and there is the standard action conflict. This movie has been described as a Space Western, and I see the tropes and along with what would be called homage today - six shooter, bad guy vs. good guy, aging hero, and show downs. But the same plot devices are used in Robin Hood, Ivanhoe, Ben Hur, Hornblower etc., and were long before Akira Kurosawa provided a shorthand for lazy film critics. This film is closer to "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" than "Seven Samurai." And it gets the science and technology of the moon down right, and explains it in a way that even Kubrick could have learned from on 2001 - make it simple and don't drag it out. The science is pretty bang on. That is the problem with a lot of 60s productions about space, they were slightly a notch above the bug eyed monster craze of the 50s in terms of believable science. But audiences were savy by 1969/1970 having been exposed to coverage of the real NASA lunar program and other space exploration efforts. I would say this movie owes a little to Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun" and the then in production television show "UFO," in terms of realism and look. Stylistic look, with props that make sense, and good looking 60s women in future clothes. It all makes one long for the future we were promised but never realized in the late 60s. Now, where is my food in a pill and hover car?

Having kindly been given a DVD of John Boorman's Excalibur by a friend,I was pleasantly surprised to discover a bonus DVD in the box of a movie called Moon Zero Two.Searching online for details about the title,I was thrilled to learn that this film is Hammer studio's only attempt at a "Space Western",which led to me getting hold of my space boots and Cowboy hat to take a trip to Hammer's Western moon.The plot:Ever since having made his mark on history by being the first man to ever land on Mars,William H. Kemp has seen his life slowly slide,going from fame and fortune to hanging around a salon bar on the moon having one too many drinks. With feeling largely disgusted by how the commercial company (Space Corruption) want to leave space exploration behind to instead focus on commercial travel.Kemp decides to take the job of being an intergalactic scrap metal collector.Returning to the moon salon after doing his recent round of picking up scrap parts from rusted space ships and starlight's,Kemp runs into a newly arrived billionaire,who gives him the tantalising offer of helping him to reach an asteroid entirely made of sapphire. View on the film:Opaning the movie with a charming animated credits scene and an extremely catchy title track sung by Julie Driscoll,director Roy "A Night To Remember" Ward Baker does fairly well at keeping the Western side of the film to always be a noticeable feature,from funny shoot outs (featuring a terrific Bernard Bresslaw) to everyone getting drunk in the moon's salon on cheap (drinkable!) rocket fuel whist being surrounded by dancing girls.Along with the western elements,Baker also makes the Sci- Fi setting wonderfully faulty,by focusing on how often the machines of the future constantly break down and also shows the characters dislike for some of the main technological changes (due to whiskey being $35 a shot,all of the crew put up with drinking a rocket fuel alternative.) Whilst Baker does very good at keep the Sci-Fi and Western elements constantly changing places,the screenplay/story (by Michael Carreras,Gavin Lyall,Frank Hardman and Martin Davison) disappointingly never reaches the level of excitement that it promises,with Kemp's come down from his past fame and initial excitement on going to the asteroid,weirdly feeling rather ordinary,and lacking most of the thrills that could have sent this shining movie off into a bright (sun) moonset.

First saw it when I was 12 and it has a place in my heart still after all these years; unlike a lot of other movies I enjoyed as a kid but can't stand today like "Battle of the Bulge" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark".Anyway, back to the movie. Today, it's the kitsch value that I really like, I mean, there's something incredibly cute and sexy about 60's women in futuristic garb. There is a conflict in the movie about the tone; is it a sci-fi thriller with action and danger, or a tongue in cheek effort (with Moonopoly even)? The effects are good in some areas and really poor in others; but apart from 2001 you can say that about most sci fi films of that era. It shares something else with 2001 that other more famous sci-fi movies don't and that's no sound in a vacuum. Full credit to the film makers that they paid attention to their science. In fact, the movie script has some basis in real science about conditions on the moon and in space (groovy sequence of a spacesuit puncture causing the crushing of a hired goon). So we have no noise in a vacuum, but do they give us just silence? No, they fill the soundtrack with what can be only described as the kind of music known as Porno-Jazz. No matter, I actually like that kind of stuff. C'mon everyone "Moooooooonnnnnn Zero Twooooo, let's all go to the Moon nowwwwwwwwwwwww, Mooooooooonnnnnnnn Zero Twoooooooooo".