BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN (1962)
(a.k.a. NEBO SOVYOT)
Article #156 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 8-19-2001
Posting date: 1-2-2002

A rescue mission is performed in outer space.

I can’t say what the original Russian movie was like, but in its Americanized version, this one is a tedious, talky bore, made worse by the substandard dubbing, and some of the meddling with the film, especially the addition of the two godawful monsters who pop up near the end of the movie. Talkiness is in itself not automatically dull, but it requires much better dialogue and acting than we get here, though I suspect subtitles might have been just as difficult and the movie could really only be fully enjoyed in its original language, but I’m afraid I don’t speak Russian. There is some plot tampering to be found; I got quite annoyed with that electronic blot covering up a section of one of the spaceships (I’m assuming it was to cover up something that would have made it clear that the ship was Russian). As for the monster footage, it’s not only bad, it’s insulting; this movie was trying to be a legitimate science fiction drama, and the monsters are so inappropriate that it left me feeling that an unnatural act was being performed on the movie (which might explain why the monsters look so phallic). I don’t know how good the original version would be, but it’s got to be better than this one.