Truly Dreadful Film

A Brilliant Conflict

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Another glorious example of Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion monstrosities, 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH features everyone's favorite monster from Venus, the Ymir- a reptilian creature, released from an egg, that grows from pint-size to economy-size at an astounding rate! The monster is caught, only to escape and go on an obligatory rampage of deadly destruction! The best thing about 20MMTE is that the Ymir gets a lot of screen time, making it one of the stars of the movie, as opposed to being just another rarely-shown threat. William Hopper, having just matched wits w/ THE DEADLY MANTIS, attempts to track the creature, as Col. Robert Calder. He is joined by Joan Taylor, shortly after her role in EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS, as Marisa Leonardo. Contains the classic Ymir vs. elephant scene, as well as the finale at the Coliseum in Rome! A 1950's sci-fi gem!...

Put em' back where you found him! That's the only solution to this issue, bringing a creature from Venus down to earth in order to study how they can survive on Venus's atmosphere. Of course, if some Earthling was pulled off this planet by a Martian or any other planet for the same reason (or any reason), they wouldn't like it either. This all starts in the coast off of Sicily where a space craft suddenly plunges into the sea as fisherman watch. Two of them and one of their younger sons head to the craft to help rescue any possible survivors, not even sure if they are going to be earthlings. Fortunately, their gamble pays off, but the little boy finds a remnant from the ship which he turns over to a local scientist and his daughter (Joan Taylor) for examination. This object contains a monstrous looking creature from Venus which starts off as arms length but quickly grows thanks to the earth's atmosphere, soon traipsing all over Italy and ending up in Rome where it takes a tour of the grounds where Nero once fiddled and Caligula once tortured Christians. By this time, he's the size of Godzilla and not at all happy that the military (mostly American) won't leave him alone.Superb in every aspect (with a few goofs that only today's audiences would pick up on thanks to advanced special effects that just aren't as fun as what Ray Harryhausen does here), this roars by in under 90 minutes and is filled with so many great sequences that to mention just a few would be a detriment to those who have not seen it before. Still, to see this sad creature being tracked, almost electrocuted and placed in solitary confinement, and finally, breaking out of the zoo and battling an elephant, you can't help but be touched by it. When the creature does finally find some seclusion, it's in the middle of Rome's famous Colosseum where even there he can't find peace. William Hopper's surviving astronaut seems compassionate to the poor creature but, knowing it's too late to take them back to their home planet, is resolved to the fact that he's going to either have to kill it or watch the earth be destroyed by it. His acknowledgment that through every advancement mankind makes, the costs are greater, is one of the great theories of our times, and one which should wake today's audiences up to how we further destroy ourselves and potentially our own planet and species, through messing in science where we should just leave it alone.

This was billed on the "Movies!" TV channel as a "popcorn" movie, and that it is. Nothing at all to take seriously, just a mostly fun B&W sci- fi movie typical of the 1950s.The first thing that struck me was the idea of a space mission to the planet Venus. The atmosphere at the surface of Venus exerts about the same pressure as being under water 3000 feet on Earth, a pressure that would crush most things. Plus the surface is generally in the 800 to 900 degree F range. A very inhospitable place, not likely ever to be visited.But this is a fantasy sci-fi story, I didn't get hung up on that very long and just went with it. To the credit of the writers they explained a few things to make it seem somewhat plausible.The movie starts with two men and a boy in a small fishing boat off Sicily. They look up to see a pointy spaceship in obvious distress that crash-lands into the sea, point down it remains afloat just long enough to let them rescue the commander and to see that there were few survivors.The young boy is a western and Texas fan, he wants a big hat and a horse, and finds things to sell to the local biologist to raise funds. Ashore he finds a USAF cylinder on land and, instead of revealing his discovery, takes the gelatinous contents to the biologist. Inside is the embryo of a creature from Venus which, after exposure to earth's atmosphere grows at a fantastically rapid rate. So much so that it cannot be contained and becomes a threat to all of Italy.As movies like this go the humans eventually figure out a way to prevail, in the meantime the entertainment is to see the monster wreak havoc and the Earthlings avoid death. The final scenes playing out in the ruins of an old Roman coliseum, military shooting big weapons at the now very large alien species. At the end one general says, "Why is it so difficult to move from the present to the future?" Definitely a "B" movie but entertaining as a representative of the 1950s sci-fi movies.

Nathan Juran directed this science fiction story starring William Hopper as a returning astronaut commanding the first spaceship to Venus, which crashes into the sea of Sicily. Onboard was a local creature, called an Ymir, which was freed from its container by a curious child who had found it onshore, then proceeds to grow to giant size, terrorizing the countryside, then heading to Rome. Joan Taylor plays a nurse and potential love interest, who helps treat the creature when it is captured, though of course it escapes... Ray Harryhausen's F/X are excellent, but it is the sympathetic portrayal of the Ymir that makes this film memorable, certainly not the contrived and predictable story! That poor creature is just out of its element, and would never have grown that large in its native atmosphere.