Ok, now let's do this for real. Hopefully this is worth the wait.
The Doomsday Machine (1972(?)) starts with a slow boring credit sequence before starting properly in China. We see a female spy sneak into a not-heavily guarded at all base. Seriously, there's only two guards and she gets by one by tossing a cat over a small brick wall. She steals a labcoat inside the base while killing a passing a scientist with the victim's own braids. Then, she meets up with another spy who somehow knew when to meet her and they take out the second and last guard. What I'm saying is that this is a low budget movie that couldn't remotely pull off spy stuff at the beginning. It's the least occupied place in China. They find a small item with a dome and sneak out after taking two pictures of it.
Cut to a place which is really a US defense place and not a classroom. The people watch the two slides over and over again. One of the slides shows a bunch of switches. Somehow, the officials figure out that it's a doomsday device.
Cut to a US base where a rocket is going to be sent to Venus soon. We get the obligatory press conference where some guy (who I think is one of our astronauts, but he's so forgettable) gives the obligatory SCIENCE! speech. It's so obvious that I wonder why it was used then instead of now when there's less interest in space, but it does eat up time. All the time we get an annoying announcer interrupting the actors with T-minus whatever crap. I remember being a kid when counting off to zero ALWAYS led to us yelling "BLASTOFF!" I guess that's why people lost interest in NASA. It's very boring and the counting is annoying.
Anyway, we meet our astronauts. We have a crazy pilot, and old man, and the comic relief. The comic relief is played by Bobby Van but I'm not sure who he is. He should be the annoying type, but if you watch this film you'll forget him. The crew is ready to go but are puzzled about the fact that they're being rushed. Even more puzzling is the fact that some of the crew is being dumped for three women. The new crew members are a boring forgettable leader woman, a slutty woman, and a Soviet stereotype. Along with the captain who gave the speech earlier we have a crew of seven who are forced into space a little early.
Now, we get to the rocket, which is where the budget reveals itself. If you've seen the movie 12 to the Moon, imagine that they dropped the international angle, but still had the same budget. I'm talking about a small rocket where the crew members use recliners. Seriously, look at this picture and try not to laugh.
Actually, I'm sure 12 to the Moon had a higher budget. At least they did stuff on a planet. Our crew in this movie never land anywhere. It's mostly just the misadventures of dysfunctional astronauts on their shape changing rocket. The old guy nearly dies on takeoff. The women disobey direct orders but are never punished. The pilot is a complete jerk who becomes a near rapist toward the end. The comic relief is so bad that we can't even bother to hate him.
And thanks to the doomsday device, these are the last seven people alive. The slutty woman completely freaks out when she finds out the news. Good thing they chose her to be one of three women left to (somehow) populate Venus.
Of course, she would have if it weren't for the sudden blast of radiation from what was the earth. Now we learn that the crew might go sterile, and their only hope to reach Venus is to lose four crew members. (What a dark film. And yet I still don't find it as nihilistic as The Oozing Skull. Go figure.) They actually ask their ship computer who will survive, even though it would obviously include two women and the best man of the four. Despite this, they somehow leave it up to the computer and question it when the results are back. Our captain shows initiative for the first time when he suddenly decides that no one will die, but it's too late. The crazy pilot and the slutty woman get jettisoned into space when he tries to rape her. We actually watch them as they get exposed to the vacuum and it's pretty gross. Even though it's not like Event Horizon, it's something the audience could have done without as we watch blood pour from their eyes. This scene is one of the big moments of the film and you can see a picture of it on the DVD.
Somehow our crew finds out about this despite the fact that they're in space and moving really fast. Then they try to get rid of some weight. While doing so, we find out about a small chest that contains food for Venus. It was introduced early in the movie but no one would remember it by the time that's revealed. Anyway, as the crew gets closer to Venus, the ship has problems that Bobby Van has to sacrifice himself to fix. Mostly he sort of climbs on the rocket, straddles it somehow (It's the tiniest rocket ever!) and does something with a crowbar. He has problems until the Soviet (who falls for him despite the fact that she's otherwise unemotional) helps. They get left behind as the Astra takes off. Good one, Russkie. Now the human race is down to one woman.
That is until Bobby and the Russian woman find a ghost ship. This is a Russian ship that was rumored to be lost. As they board the ship, the movie shifts a gear. Thanks to the low budget, from here on out this couple is replaced by stock footage of astronauts from another movie and voice acting by other actors. Not only that, but after it seems that these two are going to reunite with the Astra and a happy ending is to be achieved, the rug is pulled out from beneath them. Some voice (from space?) tells them that there was no Astra. I'm not kidding. They rip off the ending of Monster a-Go-Go.
If this movie doesn't sound terrible and boring, than I've done something wrong. The plot is terrible, the sets are ridiculously cheap, and the actors sleepwalk through their performances. The movie is depressing and hardly worth the trip.
Which means we have a good candidate for the CT Titans. I was really excited about this episode when I heard about it. Unfortunately, the episode wasn't quite what I was hoping for. That's not to say that I don't recommend it, but I was hoping that this would be a big improvement over The Oozing Skull. It's a good episode, but if I gave it a grade it would still be in the C range. It compares more to a mid Joel MST3k episode. Maybe Joel fans would appreciate that but I'm more of a fan of the SciFi era.
I would say that this episode has a slow beginning, a slow end, and a good in between. It keeps a good pace, but it's not as fast as later MST3k episodes would be. I'm starting to wonder if they still haven't quite figured out how to distribute riffs among five people. With three people the riffs can come fairly rapidly. Maybe in a few episodes they'll figure it out. Or maybe CT has a slightly more laid back approach to riffing. It's not as laid back as the early Joel episodes, but it's still slower than what I'm used to.
Another thing that I have to poin out is that while I laughed at most of the riffs, I don't think there were many laugh out loud riffs. That's not necessarily a bad thing (at least I never groaned at anything), but it keeps me from giving it a B grade. My favorite episodes of MST3k had parts where I would lose it. While the riffs are good, the episode never quite reach the level where I'm gasping for air. (For example, there's a scene in Riding with Death where Casey is attacked and Buffalo rushes in to save him. There's three rapid fire riffs that make fun of Buffalo that still crack me up to this day. ("Super Cracker!" "And, he misses the fight completely.") This is why I raise the issue of the ok but not quite fast pace of the riffs, because usually the funniest MST3k moments are when riffs come so fast that you don't have the opportunity to recover.
Like I said before, the host segments aren't very good. The first movie break is so predictable that it should have been an MST3k cartoon. I can agree with the premise, but it goes nowhere and fails to get a laugh. The second one is a little better, in that I laughed when Frank told Mary Jo that she wasn't going to survive the apocalypse. It also features the episode's lone visual gag. (Besides a moment at the end, this episode lacks much on screen action. I rewatched The Oozing Skull and forgot about the Steven Hawking thing. It's weird that they can do anything on stage and decided to go conservative with this episode.) The best host segment is the intro, if only because I like the hallways and the picture intros for the Titans. I realize now that there isn't going to be a premise for this show but I hope they keep the intro for new episodes.
The opening credits are slow and the riffs are hit or miss at this poin, but it's not without a few zingers. I think the best was Trace's "Is this another original screen play by (some guy)?" in a accusatory tone. The movie riffs pick up when we reach the spy lady. Some good gags come at the expense of the poorly staffed base and the Chinese. When one guard is killed, Mary Jo remarks that "Ok, now his parents can have another child." (This joke is darker given the recent earthquake, but still funny.) I think it was Frank that poined out that "Just because you bend over like that doesn't mean you're sneaking around." or something to that effect. Josh gets a good MST3k reference when they seem the bubble dome doomsday device.
Later on we move to the base where we get the annoying announcer. Trace gets the best line when he tells the movie to "T-minus SHUT UP!"
It was odd that they waited so long to comment on the changing Astra. That doesn't mean I didn't laugh when they mocked how quickly the rocket (and space station, and whatever) turned in space, but it was toward the end of the movie where they finally mentioned it. "Just pick a plastic spaceship and go with it, ok?" Inside the rocket, the best riffs came from Mary Jo as she laughed at how small the sets were.
Joel's best riff came when Bobby Van was straddling the rocket and he poined out how gravity didn't work until he sat on the one side. And I liked the I Love Lucy riff if only because it gave Trace a chance to do his "Crow doing Lucy Ricardo" impression.
The last part of the movie is really slow, the final thing holding it back from a higher grade. It also features the second on screen gag as Josh leaves and is replaced by a guy with a bigger head. It was an ok gag. I guess this part of the movie was too much for the Titans to salvage.
That's it for my review. I can't wait for the third episode, and hope that it's the home run that I was hoping this episode would be. We'll see in about a month.
Grade: C+
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