Back in time for this one my brothers and sisters. 1979! And look at the cast – Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Martin Landau, Brian Keith and Henry Fonda as the President. What a cast, eh? Well stop right there. The bad news is, the plot was ludicrous, the special effects were laughable, the acting was atrocious and finally, the music was hideous. However, the good news is, all these factors combined made this movie absolutely FUCKING hilarious (assuming you get high as the bejesus first). Jiminy Christmas, I laughed my ass off throughout this one! It’s gold Jerry, gold!
Sean Connery starred as Dr. Paul Bradley from NASA, alerted to a possible extinction event by – guess what – a meteor! Karl Malden played fellow NASA scientist Harry Sherwood. Super simple plot that has been repeated in many movies since – a meteor was going to destroy the earth – we had to destroy it first. And, of course, the weapon of choice – nuclear missiles. Brian Keith had the easiest job in this one, as a Soviet space scientist Dr. Dubov, he never spoke one word of English – not one. It was supposed to be Russian, but my money was on gibberish, a la J. Peterman from Seinfeld. It was, however, annoying that they never used sub-titles or switch to automatic translation into English like most modern movies handle this. Instead, Natalie Wood as Tatiana translated pretty much every word he uttered. But even without speaking any real words, he sure hammed it up with constant, oddly out of place silly grins he kept using. At one point, he snapped and made a ridiculous speech, but only after Marin Landau’s General Adlon did the same. There was an obvious contest between these actors to see who could be the hammiest of the ham, and Martin ran away with it. Good lawd was he amusing – I almost choked on a cherry during one scene.
You will laugh throughout this movie, even as you watch people getting killed by smaller meteors that strike the earth before the big one arrives. These scenes really weren’t needed – one would have been sufficient to forward the story but three made it clear they were looking for any way possible to stretch out this load of shit from a one hour TV show to a full ninety minute movie. Another example was the five solid minutes showing the cheapest, most fake looking model nuclear missiles you’ve ever seen.
Don’t laugh yourself completely out though, save your breath for the subway scene after a smaller meteor wipes out New York City (and eerily takes out the Twin Towers before striking the ground) – the only moment of this entire “serious” movie where you actually sober up for a moment. The latex paint leak into the subway as the cast of characters tries to escape from the rubble was like watching a Three Stooges skit, and all the more funny with the knowledge that some buffoon directing this schlock forty plus years ago thought this was a dramatic scene.
Anywho, enough of this review. Get toasted on your favorite greenery and prepare to laugh your ever-loving ass off. Six Little Boy’s out of ten (strictly for the comedy).