The Humanoid

A fantasy tale following exploits of a group of rebel forces engaged in a life and death struggle, while trying to save the planet Metropolis . The movie's opening prologue in the English version states: "Metropolis, known ages ago as planet Earth, now faces its gravest hour. Lord Graal, has just escaped from the prison - satellite where his brother - ruler of the peaceful, galactic democracy had exiled him. Malevolent and power-hungry, Graal has plans of vengeance that might forever alter the destiny of mankind". Hoping to overthrow his brother and to establish a cruel dictatorship , the evil Graal (Ivan Rassimov) enlists the support of the nutty Dr. Kraspin (Arthur Kennedy) , helped by Lady Agatha (Barbara Bach) , who has invented a chemical capable of turning an ordinary person into a relentless soldier , wanting to use him as a warfare prototype . They test this chemical on the pilot Golob (first top-billed film for Richard Kiel) , turning the unsuspecting victim into a mindless but indestructable automaton possessing superhuman strength. As a team of valiant heroes (Corinne Clery , Leonard Mann, Marco Yeh , Massimo Serato) battle a Galactic leader who wants at whatever cost to overthrow his brother , and he'll stop at nothing to get it .The people of Metropolis must somehow outwit Graal before he can create an army of these soldiers, or their planet will be completely eliminated. From a Distant Planet - The Greatest Ever Challenge to Mankind. Light years beyond tomorrow...The film's closing epilogue in the English print states: "Once again Planet Earth had narrowly escaped disaster. Once again, it had found in itself the intelligence, the insight and the strength to repel a mortal enemy. Once again, man was to live at peace in the galaxy".

Colorful Sci-Fi with thrills , chills , spaces battles , dogfighting and botchering special effects . This Star Wars rip-off takes elements here and there of the previous famous fim , such as : storm-troopers dressed in black Darth Vader style ; the likable robodog bears resemblance to R2D2 , scenes set on a desert planet ; a Falconesque spaceship and other various similar sets , props , atrezzo , gowns , vehicles, and background design elements . It fact , The Humanoid (1979) takes part of a late-1970s cycle of Italian Sci-Fi pictures really influenced by the classical Star Wars (1977) . It is a real and spectacular pantomime , and , like most pantomimes , it is a lot of fun and entertaining enough. Essentially an adventure movie set in outer space , this amusing but silly film results to be an average Sci-Fi flick with no much interest , though to be appreciated for those cinemagoers looking for bad pictures . Set at cinematic standard of the Seventies , but at the same time with traditional and rudimentary special effects , including overwhelming battles and aerial scenes galore.

It contains a colorful and brilliant cinematography by cameraman Silvano Ippoliti shot on location in Eilat, Israel and studios from Cinecittà Studios, Dear Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy. Adding a weird and synthesizer soundtrack by Ennio Morricone with a lot of electronic music. The motion picture was lousily written and directed by Aldo Lado. He is a good writer and filmmaker who has directed a few films with great casting . His first film was a giallo titled The short night of the butterflies or Short Night of Glass Dolls or Paralysed or Malastrana with ingrid Thulin, Jean Sorel. After directing the extremely violent and successful : ¨Last stop in night train¨. Following other movies with not much success such as : La Cosa Buffa, Sepolta viva , La disubbidienza, La cugina , Il nocturno di Chopin and The humanoid . Rating : 4/10 , inferior Sci-Fi , though it has some diverting scenes and entertainment enough.

THE HUMANOID is one of the most entertaining movies ever made. Aldo Lado has supplied me with some of the most bizarre and twisted images you could never imagine. You know you're in for a treat when the main character is named Golob, played by a bearded Richard Kiel and he's got a robot-dog in his crappy spaceship. You somehow can't go wrong from there on.

The Tom Tom character is also doing his to make THE HUMANOID one of the ultimate Italian science fiction epics, beware his excellent wisdom. Barbara Bach and the gigantic Kiel was quite the team in the Seventies, and as always she's looking hot in this; "The story of Golob turning Unfriendly and Unstoppable". I love Golob and his dog, I wish to see more of them. Why weren't there any sequels?

Ahhh! The glory of Italian Cinema of the Seventies and Eighties continues. These directors and screenwriters seemed to have no limits in ripping off the Hollywood big-seller. There's still plenty of somewhat obscure masterpieces to be discovered, I'm glad I found this one.

As an undiscerning child of 8, still high on fumes from Star Wars and consumed with a voracious appetite for anything to do with spaceships, laser guns, and cute robots, the TV-aired trailer from The Humanoid produced the desired effect: I nagged myself and a friend into being escorted to the local cinema by my dad. Through those eyes, the movie provided a suitable fix, despite feeling a little flat over all. But hey, it had a cute robot dog, space ships and lasers all the way through! Thirty five years later things appear very different. In fairness, the technical quality of the DVD copy I purchased is pretty poor but it's clearly not an official release. However, there are some details in the extraordinarily poor production values that with even with the most generous and forgiving attitude I can't ascribe to anything but a cynical disregard for quality by the director. Another spectacular facet of this movie is how many scenes appear to be nothing more than Sweded versions of identical scenes in Star Wars. The recipe for this entire project can be summed up as:

1> Select some iconic scenes from Star Wars.

2> Reproduce them using funds from coins found down the back of the sofa.

3> Wrap a vague plot around them - don't worry too much about the details.

4> Fill the gaps with mystical nonsense - if it is spouted by an Asian child then it becomes all the more reasonable.

5> Season with a liberal sprinkling of cleavage and nipples to taste.

Overall it's worth watching for the lulz, and as a cultural artifact which demonstrates how desperate everyone was to cash in on Star Wars at the time. Watching that pathetic robot dog attempt to emulate R2D2 as it hobbles across the dessert is really quite tragic.

In keeping with the tone of the previous reviews, it has to be said that I will re-watch this classic of terrible cinema, which is more than I can say about The Phantom Menace.

P.S. "Star Wars meets Monkey" is an entirely accurate summary of this movie that sadly I can't take credit for. A friend of mine described it thusly after watching chunks of it on You Tube.

There are times that films feel like gift packages wrapped up for just me and my insane taste in movies. Let me tell you all of the ways that The Humanoid makes me want to fall to my knees and give thanks: it's an Italian ripoff of Star Wars directed by Aldo Lado (Who Saw Her Die?, The Short Night of the Glass Dolls) working under the pseudonym George B. Lewis, a name that sounds close to George Lucas. It's got Ivan Rassimov, the crazy eyed star of such B&S About Movies favorites as Planet of the Vampires, Shock, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key and All the Colors of the Dark as Lord Graal, the samurai helmet and black armor clad bad guy who is this film's Darth Vader. It's got James Bond henchman supreme Richard Kiel as Golob, a giant henchman who wears a jacket straight out of Brotherhood of the Wolf. It's got Arthur Kennedy (The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue) in it! And it starts with the same shot Star Wars does, with a giant ship filling the screen and a crawl of type. And much like Starcrash it transcends its inspiration to become an insane movie unto itself.

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....Which is pretty much the only occasions I'd watch this film.

Honestly, this film is one long collection of laughable clichés. More than Star Crash, and that is a feat of some magnitude.

The incredibly poor special effects. Yes, it was 1979 and this film was a low-budget spaghetti sci fi flick, so I suppose we could forgive it for this. Almost.

The incredibly laughable reuse of models and costumes from other sources which shall remain nameless to protect them from comparison.

The painfully repetitive soundtrack, more like a collection of notes strung together.... I can't believe Ennio Morricone was responsible for it.

The stunning range of Richard Kiel's acting. He must have been getting mightily sick of playing the invincible, monstrous giant by this stage. Normally nobody would play the role better, but his rampage through various faceless soldiers is so stupid as to elicit more laughs than fear.

And then there is Marco Yeh as Tom Tom.... It doesn't come as any surprise to me that this is the only production to feature him listed on IMDb.... At least he didn't have to wear the stupid costume Ivan Rassimov was made to suffer.

But gawd is it funny as hell....