Star Odyssey (1979) (orig. Sette uomini d’oro nello spazio) – Director: Alfonso Brescia – 2/10 (very bad)
The movie conceivably could have worked providing that it had moved at a tolerable pace and displayed its psychotronic qualities more imaginatively; predictably enough though, the motion picture begins to stagnate and decompose about fifteen minutes in and never recovers primarily because of the said dilatory rhythm, though also by reason of its infinitesmal budget and bewilderingly poor production values, which further aggravate the narrative as well as structural problems. Long story short, multiple scenes are shot in a single take, the sets ooze with an oppressive sense of decreptitude with film’s grainy, fuzzy photography further compounding the excruciatingly cheapjack appearance, the actors invariably put on awful performances and the writing in the middle turns out totally muddled which is further exacerbated by cumbersome editing. The composition vacillates between pure camp and something approximating a more serious, corny style of sci-fi feature, ergo the issue likewise consists in the varying tone; flick’s apparent fixation with hypnosis and telepathy which it lavishes its audience with does not make things any better either and eventually turns out quite vexatious. At the end of the day though, film’s biggest shortcoming undoubtedly lies in its torturously laggard pacing which is rendered all the more agonizing on account of the absurd running time exceeding 100 minutes.
