Search - Star Odyssey and Super Sci-fi Bonus ( the Littlest Martion, Escape Into Space, Electric Earthquake, Astromeous) on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 10/17/2023...

Star Odyssey - Cheesy and somewhat fun without all the CGI non-sense!

Robots In Love Join Forces With Italian Acrobat Freedom Figh

Robert I. Hedges | 02/18/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If my title sounds confusing, just wait until you watch the movie. This film (originally called "Sette Uomini D'oro Nello Spazio," literally, "Seven Men of Gold in Space" as near as I can translate) wanted so badly to be "Star Wars" that it even had anthropomorphized robots with emotions, Tilk and Tilly, and an evil guy wearing a black cape with a suspiciously force-like abilities. Sound familiar? Truly, this is one of the most poorly executed films I have ever seen, but it is so bad as to be hilarious to watch. I gave it four stars for pure unadulterated cheese value; I deducted one star for being such a poor, dark transfer with bad audio.

The film opens with bad electronic music (repeated throughout the film at random, inappropriate times) that is akin to the theme from "Pod People." The first thing I noted was that the box and the credits can't agree on how to spell the name of the star of the film, Yanti Sommer. Or is it Yanti Somer? (Actually, the second seems to be correct, given other movie credits.) The first thing that becomes obvious is that the sets are very cheesy, and the dubbing to English matches, as does the acting: apparently there is no Italian word for "subtle." The cast has it all, including an extremely annoying actor whose name is "Hollywood" evidently because he is so good looking. This is a premise that I don't think anyone will buy, especially after one look at his mustache: he plays one third of a torrid and confusing love triangle. Also featured throughout are really bad computer "voices" that are perhaps the lamest things I have ever heard.

There is some expository information about how a superior world will be enslaving the earth shortly, which is illustrated by black and white world war two blitzkrieg footage of explosions edited jarringly into the film. To help combat the looming menace the heroes enlist the help of a crazy professor with a telepathically controlled medicine chest. To distract us from the plot the film then shows about ten pointless minutes of a space "casino" with the lamest games I have ever seen, and a fistfight due to the other two thirds of the love triangle. This, logically, leads to footage of a wrestling match of two acrobats versus a robot (whose occupant's face is clearly visible through the eye holes.) I still don't get it.

In a jump back to the main plot, some guys steal spaceships to go to a space prison colony under the psychic influence of the professor (I think: yellow glowing eyes seemingly indicate this.) The earth is then auctioned off for one hundred million credits, so the bad guy with faux-force capabilities can get billions of slaves. As the alien ship approaches earth, Italian Space Command directs the defenses against the UFO's (which they pronounce "you-fos,") but to no avail.

Next, one of the Italian acrobatic team takes his would-be girlfriend to a junkyard to reassemble two experimental robots set for scrapping. These robots, Tilk and Tilly, are two of the most annoying characters in screen history. They have personalities, and are involved in a suicidal love pact of an unconventional nature. (If you want to know more about it, don't worry, they talk about it constantly.) They continuously ramble pompously about the meaninglessness of existence and related nonsense, and have an unreal dialect, especially where exclamations (which are frequent) are concerned ("Great integrated circuits!") For some reason throughout the alien android invasion (by tall, blond, Nordic androids, of course) the acrobat almost continuously practices his tumbling routine in the background. I have no idea why.

Despite human frailty, the Italians manage to put a dent in the android invader population (we get to see them regenerate by mitosis,) while the professor concentrates hard to prevent liftoff of the UFO, inspiring the classic line "Someone's preventing our liftoff with a telepathic net!" The gallant space warriors take to the skies and defend earth against the aliens in what is the silliest looking space battle since "Rocky Jones, Space Ranger." Thankfully the love triangle also gets resolved, though perhaps not as you might expect. The end is supposed to lead to a sequel, as it closes with an ominous, threatening speech. Unfortunately, the climactic line of the speech is obliterated by a dropout in the audio track, so the movie becomes that much more enigmatic. Is the battle over? Who knows? Who cares?

This film is an amazing example of the Italian sci-fi genre from the 1970's. It is so bad it's not only good, it's great. I don't know who could take this film seriously, but if you love entertainingly bad films, this is a definite winner!"