It Came From Uranus! (2007) - By Duane L. Martin

Film Reviews: It Came From Uranus! (2007) - By Duane L. Martin
Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2008 @ 23:05:00 Mountain Standard Time by Duane

It Came From Uranus! Yeah, that whole Uranus joke has been done to death, and when I first received this film, I didn't have high hopes for it simply because of the title. I also didn't have high hopes for it because it's a film that's made to look like the old classic b-movies from the 50's, and it's SO easy to screw that up. Believe me, as a lover of classic b-movies, I've seen it done masterfully and I've seen it screwed up, and nothing irritates me more than when someone tries to do it and screws it up. So did this movie screw it up? Yes in some ways, but here's the thing - they weren't serious about trying to make it look perfect. They just had fun with it. They made it look like the classics, but weren't taking themselves entirely seriously in doing so. Once I came to understand the level this film was going for, I found myself really enjoying it!

It Came From Uranus! is basically about three scientists, a female reporter and a janitor (who dies early on) who end up rocketing off into space together in an effort to save the Earth from a giant chunk of Uranus that had broken free of the planet and was now threatening to destroy our planet. Once the planet is saved, they come across another chunk from Uranus that has a castle on it inhabited by the all female society that had lived on the planet. The queen had turned all the men into breeders, and basically they were "used up", if you know what I mean. Not a bad way to go really if you think about it. There's more to it, but it'd be better if you just watched it for yourself.

This movie is a great homage to the fun and style of the old classics, while adding in it's own modern sense of fun. Some of the great and more notable aspects of this film include robots made out of trash cans, an ape creature where you can see the openings in the guy's costume, including his sneakers, a big ugly space spider made out of what looked like trash bags, a giant destructo ray made out of a toilet paper roll, string guided spaceships, bad acting, cheesy costumes and more!

On a technical level, the movie was pretty well done. The pacing seemed a little slow in certain parts. This could have been taken care of either in editing or in the script, but it wasn't all that bad. The lighting was always good with everything clearly visible. The sound was good, but at times hard on the ears because of room reverb and what not, but generally you could hear all the dialogue just fine. The set design was fun as well. The queen's throne in her throne room was acually a deck chair. My wife Sharon was all, "Hey, that's just like the chair we have on our deck!" The inside of the rocket ship was pretty spartan, but it was good for what was going on in there and the controls were rather amusing looking.

The long and the short of it is, this was an absolutely fun movie, and if you go into it knowing what it is and having the right expectations of it, you're going to have an absolute blast watching it.

If you'd like to find out more about this film and get links on where to purchase it, check out the film's website at http://www.sn-films.com/mvUranus.htm. Be sure to check out S&N's other films while you're there as well.