I love this movie so much

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The more I think about this movie the more I realize that it's kind of "The Time Machine" with a bit of a space travel twist to it - and one of the stars is actually Rod Taylor, who also starred in the definitive movie version of "The Time Machine." It also had Hugh Marlowe, who did a few sci-fi movies in the era, along with westerns and a fair bit of TV work in his later career. It also has a few things in common with "Planet Of The Apes" - which, of course, was still quite a way in the future. This movie gives us four astronauts who somehow on a trip home from Mars (and this is set in 1957) end up being hurtled forward in time and land back on Earth about 500 years in the future. What they discover is a post-apocalyptic earth, an atomic war apparently having erupted in the 22nd century. The dangers of radiation were a staple of 1950's Cold War sci-fi movies, of course, because everyone was afraid of atomic war breaking out. So, as with many sci-fi pictures of this era, we do get mutants - silly looking giant spiders, and cyclopean looking humans on the surface who seem interested in little but attacking whatever they find. But our intrepid astronauts also discover an underground and non-mutant human society (unless the mutation is that all women are beautiful and long-legged and naturally inclined to wear really short skirts - although the most beautiful of the women may have been Lisa Montell as Deena, brought below from the surface, who wore pants.) This society locks itself away from the world above out of fear of the mutants and has really developed a rather passionless and fearful outlook on life - perhaps understandable for people who essentially spend their entire existence cowering in fear. The beautiful women, of course, are quite taken with the handsome muscular men from the past - we're told that even in the 26th century when they haven't seen anything except this rather pathetic collection of the male of the species women can't resist men with "good shoulders." The girls fall in love, jealousy erupts among the underground men, and eventually the men of the past - apparently having accepted that they can't return home - try to "un-wimp" this society and get them back to the surface - where humans belong!It's a pretty quick movie. Special effects are what would be expected from a 50's sci-fi movie, although the producers chose to spend extra to film this in colour. The women may have been beautiful and the men may have been muscular (or pale and wimpy, depending on which group you're thinking of) but one thing that pretty much everyone in the cast had in common was that they offered somewhat bland performances. It was never really explained how the spaceship travelled forward in time. There was some mythical scientific theory referred to, and the point was made that the ship travelled pretty fast. But ... The speed was originally 15 miles per second (which in terms of space travel is standing still.) Once they hit the phenomenon, they hit 100 miles per second (still standing still in space) and at that speed their instruments froze, so the point was made that since nothing beyond that was recorded they could have been going ten or even a hundred times faster than that - which is still kind of standing still in space. Certainly there seemed nothing to suggest that this little ship could have approached the speed of light - which, basically, it would have had to do to facilitate this kind of time travel. But I'm getting too technical. They travelled through time. Somehow. That's all that matters. And the four astronauts ultimately seemed to have a positive impact, and the movie does seem to end on an optimistic note. It's OK. In a lot of ways it's standard 50's sci- fi - hokey by today's standards, but entertaining enough at the time. And if you like beautiful women who all seem to have legs that go on forever - well, what's to complain about? (4/10)

This has always been one of my favorite, of the old "hokie" low-budget sci-fi films. In a way, I'd put it in a category similar to the that which "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is in. I first saw it, as a young kind, in the Saturday matinees at the local theater. Back in those days, you could just hang around after the film ended, to see it again, at no charge - and with this one - I did just that. Sure, it's got some really "hokie"-looking giant spiders (which couldn't possibly be worse), and even the mutant "cave-men", having only one eye, looked pretty silly. But the plot of the movie was so much more well thought out, than any of the other "B"-movie sci-fi flicks of the era. Although it was nonsense, that a space ship could accidentally go to near-light-speed, while in the solar system, yet still manage to "crash land" (with no injuries to the crew) in the polar regions was beyond far-fetched; but no more far-fetched than Rodan, Mothra, Godzilla, and the many, many low-budget sci-fi flicks of the era. Besides, this one took on a much more plausible story. They'd traveled forward in time, due to their incredible acceleration, but admitted there was no way to go "back again". Their primary focus was to try to help what was left of the human race to come back above ground, where their children could benefit from the sun. I thought it was a very thoughtful film, in its overall plot. I must have seen this movie 50 times, yet I still enjoy watching it every single time I get the chance. After being unavailable, in any format, for so long; it's now on DVD, and has a pretty clean picture and sound. Call me crazy, but I just love this flick!!

Not as embarrassingly bad as some of its fifties family of sci-fi but it comes close. The script is semi-intelligent and has fewer inanities and laugh-out-loud, ludicrous lines. But, it is another silly costumed, cosmetic vision of the distant future. A rubber monster with few moving parts and silly not scary looking "mutates" diminish the rather neat looking spaceship and underground interiors that have that glossy looking germ free environment that so many housewives strive. Cue Mr. Clean.WWE has a pretension about it that is troublesome and can't help but propagandize itself. Weapons are the main point of contention and mentioned in almost every scene and rightly so. It was, after all, the war weapons that made the whole world almost end. But we have here the makers and users of those weapons arrive to save the day with, you guessed it, weapons.The mind of the cold war warriors is closed to any alternative to world peace other than MAD (mutually assured destruction). Mad is what these hack warmonger script writers and filmmakers should make you feel. Let's not ever forget it was sci-fi efforts like this that refused to take the pacifist point of view and presented a lock and load, mine is bigger than yours (bazookas) mentality, that forgave the causers of the "apocalypse", and say...that was great, may I have another.

***SPOILERS*** Top of the line Allied Artists motion picture in both Technicolor and Wide Screen, reserved for the biggest blockbusters of major films studios back in the 1950's, has a quartet of US astronauts end up getting caught in a time warp. This cause their space craft accelerate beyond the speed of light that takes them form the year 1957 to 2508 in a matter of seconds on their maiden flight to Mars as the first men in outer space! Landing on this mysterious and forbidden planet the boys from space John Borden, Hugh Marlow, Dr. Galbarithe,Nelson Leigh, Herbert Ellis, Rod Taylor, & Hank Jaffe, Chris Dark, are at first in the dark to where they are. It's after being attacked by giant spiders as well as mutant and for the most part one eyed cave men that they get the picture, in escaping into an underground cave complex, that the place or planet their on is the good old earth itself!Taken in by the few humans still left on the planet the fly or space boys learn that a nuclear war had broken out in the 22th century and destroyed almost the entire human race. As for the surviving humans lead by the dilapidated and undernourished looking Timmak, Everett Glass, who've over the years had lost their nerve or willingness to fight the mutants and are now satisfied to live out their entire lives underground without as much as even seeing the light of day! It's when the astronauts get a look at the women in the cave who all look like their in their early 20's who just stepped out of a 1950's girlie magazine that they changed their minds about coming back to 20th century earth if that's at all possible. With all the shapely women flocking to the astronauts it's Mories, Booth Colman, one of the wimpy men in the cave , who for some reason all wear shower caps, who plans to discredit the time travelers to his leader Timmak. Mories does this by murdering one of of his fellow futuristic humans James, William Vadder, and then blaming his death on the innocent astronauts.Astronaut John Boden and his men have a tough time proving their innocence but it's young Deena, Lisa Montell, who saw Morise murder James who rats him out to her leader Timmak who was ready to thrown the time traveler out in the wild and at the mercy of the mutant cavemen. This has Morise now exposed as James' murderer run for his life outside the safety of the cave complex only to get caught and brutally beaten to death by the mutant one eye cave-men who were waiting for him outside! By then Borden & Co. finally convinced Timmak and the some 2,000 humans cave dwellers that he's in charge of to finally get their act together, by making and taking up arms, and fight off the mutants before they all end up becoming extinct! In that by them and their offspring's by not getting enough sunlight or vitamin "D" the cave complex populations birth rate has just about dropped to zero!Even though the flight crew were supposed to be future astronauts they wore 10 year old WWII style surplus US Army Air Force bomber and flight jackets not the air tight silvery and robot like astronaut outfits we became used to seeing in the many space flight, by both the US & USSR, over the years since the film was released. There's also Aussie actor Rod Taylor who some four years later would again travel into the future in the movie "The Time Machine" desperately trying to hide his very pronounced Australian accent, and sound American, but being totally unable to do it!