Konterr Brilliant and touching

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

mark.waltz Strange music in this movie threatened to put me into a sleep inducing trance in this strange science fiction movies. Former B movie stars Preston Foster and Joan Woodbury provide a bit of Hollywood class among the younger stars (the only one I recognized being Philip Carey of "One Life to Live") where what used to be the earth is now a moon like atmosphere where decrepit ruins of cities look like giant space rocks. Surviving humans live in the middle of the planet and encounter time travelers who are shocked to find their planet a shell of itself. Animated color photography and skin tight costumes on the surviving humans are certainly eye catching, but other than a few chases from earthbound mutants, I was completely bored. There's the subtle glimpse of barely covered female flesh, but that isn't as titillating as it sounds as the wretched dialog and maudlin line delivery might have you yawning and losing consciousness during those scenes. It tries too hard to seem smart, but the script is just too convoluted and uninteresting for most of the film. I guess I should give it credit for some interesting attempts at advancing special effects, but it would take a few more years for the next age of science fiction to take off with "2001: A Space Odyssey". At the point where the survivors left behind realize their options, I'd be willing to face the mutants. Otherwise, this is 82 minutes of an eternal death.

Scott LeBrun Celebrated Danish born science fiction writer Ib Melchior made his feature length directorial swan song with this amiable bit of escapism. Sometimes the pace gets much too draggy, and sometimes the movie itself gets just too silly and cheesy, but overall it's a fairly charming and intriguing piece of work. It gets lifted out of the ordinary by some ingenious moments, some special effects that are actually pretty good, and a striking conclusion that one won't soon forget. The actors are all wonderfully sincere, making the most of what is a fairly standard (for a while) post-apocalypse tale.A scientific team on a college campus is conducting time travel experiments, and pull off what turns out to be a journey into an Earth of the future, decimated by nuclear holocaust. While hiding from mutated, animalistic humans in a cave, they run into some survivors of the apocalypse who live in seclusion and who are planning a trip to a distant planet that should be able to sustain human life.The solid cast includes Preston Foster, Philip Carey, Steve Franken, John Hoyt (who's a standout as the helpful Dr. Varno), Dennis Patrick, Berry Kroeger, and lovely ladies Merry Anders & Delores Wells. Buffs will delight in the presence of Forrest J. Ackerman of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" fame, who appears as the square-frame technician. Carey and Franken are quite likable and Patrick is good as a character with an antagonistic attitude.Richard LaSalle does the enjoyable music score; notable names on the crew are cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (billed as William Zsigmond) and camera operator Laszlo Kovacs (billed as Leslie Kovacs). Sets & props are all appropriate for this kind of entertainment.Best of all is that unpredictable ending.Seven out of 10.

johnners11 Caught this film recently on the internet. Curious to see what it was about, and ended up watching the whole thing.A group of scientists accidentally discover a portal to a nuclear-devastated future, and fall in with the last remaining humans in their underground society. The special effects are more ingenious than convincing, but none the worse for that. For example the way, when entering the time portal, the actors move off to the side, then appear on the back-projected film running into the barren landscape; and the otherwise drawn-out scene in the android workshop, where the worker puts new eyes into the head of an android and tests that they move properly, a bit of clever painting of the cubicle below goes a fair way to hiding the obvious.Being a Brit and not having seen many of these films, the cast were strangers to me, but I found the acting pretty good, with the standout performance being from Steve Franken as Danny, the kooky electrician, providing comic relief. At the risk of sounding totally un-PC, I've always found the fuller-figured 60s 'babes' more sexy than their modern-day equivalents, and this film features quite a few, mostly with gritty, heavy-smoker voices. The one playing Danny's love interest is particularly pretty, and it's nice to see that in 2071 those sexy 60s hairstyles are still in vogue!The 'fight scene' between the mutants and androids towards the end is surprisingly violent, including a pretty harrowing shot of a burning android, which I would imagine would give some younger viewers nightmares.For me, the ending is the most interesting bit, when the protagonists find themselves in an infinite time loop - we get a pared-down version of the film we just saw, then, after they enter the loop again, an even more accelerated version. While the rest of the film is above-par 60s modest-budget sci-fi, this ending has an almost avant-garde feel to it, and the fact that there's no neat 'happily ever after' conclusion earns this film points from me.The version I saw was from a pretty poor multi-generation VHS, and I'd be intrigued to see a restored print of this released on DVD.

Kingofbad I've been watching old sci-fi films for 45 years, and time travel is my favorite of the genre. I've seen them all, and collected most, and this is a must see for any aficionado of time travel stories. I'll skip the synopsis and stick to why your brain must ingest this movie. To begin with this is the first of the straight forward time portal movies, and one of the best. The budget is surprisingly meaty for an AI movie, and the effects are quite good for the time. The quaint rear screen portal effect may seem cheesy by today's standards, but it allows for the unexpected discovery of the portal, advances the storyline nicely by providing a plausible way to get them out of the room, and sets up the totally cool story twists....especially the ending. The collapsing portal effect is very neat. Compare it to Hewitt's remake/rip-off Journey To The Center Of Time (1967). That rehash (directed by the co-producer, co-story writer, and effects manager of this movie) has everyone leaving though the door. There are so many interesting features to the story including a post apocalyptic hell scape complete with radiation scarred mutants, androids, teleportation, advanced food production techniques, force-fields, weird recreational activities, futuristic blue pant suits, and of course 60's babes including Delores "Va-Va-Voom" Wells. Almost all of the actors are above par for the time and genre, with Steve Franken doing a memorable job as the comic relief guy, and Preston Foster and John Hoyt delivering their usual workmanlike performance. Carey is a passable hero, with his Heston-like delivery, and Wells and Anders provide more than just pleasant window dressing. Of course there's the obligatory as-much-boob-as-we-dare scenes, which adds to the campy fun. I disagree with some reviewers whom assert the android factory and Wells music scenes were drawn out to kill time. This was no Coleman Francis movie. You get the impression throughout that the makers thought this was cutting edge sci-fi stuff, certainly the best androids to that time. There's some good action as well, especially the mutant attack finale. By far though the best part of this movie was the great ideas generated by the writers, a skill that seems sadly lacking these days. So much of the science was cutting edge for the time and its hard for a contemporary audience to appreciate that now. Imagine living in 1964 and only having seen the movies to date and you can begin to give this film the credit it deserves. Finally, the time-loop ending and tie in foreshadowing to the first scene is a classic and was groundbreaking. If you like time travel stuff you must collect this if only for the historical perspective it will give you on the genre. I'm just disappointed that I won't live to the year 2079...really would like to have an android and see everybody in sky-blue futuristic jumpsuits :) .