Customer Reviews

RiffTrax: Missile to the Moon - from the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000!

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you really miss the songs from the MST3K crew, then there's good news!! Kevin Murphy does the title song before the movie and it's Hilarious!! Then there's the movie, a typical outerspace tidbit from the 50's. The silly plot is about two hoods who get rocketed to the moon along with scientists (the lone female on the spaceship wears Pearls and earrings with her outerspace jumpsuit!). They land on a planet with female-only aliens who just happen to be pretty women in skimpy outfits and high heels. The head honcho is called "The Lido," for some unknown reason and her crown looks more like a chandelier on her head. The best actors are the tacky giant puppet spider and rock creatures who move faster than the stupid humans who are trying to escape them. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett do a reasonably good job. The movie and commentary are tame so it's family-friendly.

Our family have been big fans of MST3K since we first caught the show on the SciFi Channel in the late 90's. We bought quite a few of the one-movie DVD's and all 14 (so far) of the 4-movie sets. The Brain That Wouldn't Die continues to be a family favorite. We followed the "boys" to the Film Crew and own several of that series, though I have to say that while the off-screen commentaries in the Film Crew series can be as funny as the best of the MST3K shows, the skits between the movie segments generally fall flat. Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett just aren't as whimsical as humans as they were as robots. Unfortunately, the trio's efforts seem to be devolving in their third outing, The Rifftrax concept. If you haven't tried one, Rifftrax are portable audio commentaries to movies of all kinds (not just typical MST fodder) - that you can purchase with the related movie, as we did with Missile to the Moon, or download from the Rifftrax website and play on your iPod while watching a movie on your computer or TV. Sounds cool. Alas, the commentary on Missile to the Moon lacked the old MST3K snark. Granted the original show's episodes were always a bit hit and miss. In the subsequent 4-movie MST3K DVD sets, generally only one or two (at best) of the movies bear repeated viewings. I guess one can only take the Flaunting-of-Disbelief concept so far...

The only missing links here are the bots and the understory of MST. The humor is still great, fast and multilevel. Buy all your favs. Worth every dime.

This one is a fine entry in the Rifftrax catalog, and an easy pick for any MST3k fan who liked the B&W Sci-Fi movies they did so often. If you liked "Manhunt in Space" or "Phantom Planet" you'll have plenty to enjoy here. My wife and I laughed loudly and often at this one.

Others have described the plot well, so I won't bother, but I do wanna point out my favorite scene, which features something Mike and Co. didn't even mention:

At one point near the climax, one of the moon women decides to be subordinate to her leader by letting all the remaining oxygen out of the room. As she does so, everything gets sucked out the left side of the screen. All of a sudden, a rock goes flying in COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION (left to right) to clock her in the head and kill her. Look for it. A perfect slice of movie cheese if I ever saw one.

Like I said earlier, if you dug the 50's Sci-Fi movies they did all the time on MST3k, you'll be right at home with "Missle To The Moon."

another good rifftrax. man builds rocket and flys to the moon. there, he finds moon-maidens, diamonds, giant spiders, rock-men and of course, HYPNOTISM! not to mention TWO women who look like Helen Mirren. this is just the type of movie i like the MST folks to riff on.

To my knowledge this movie has been done before, by Elvira! So having the folks at RiffTrax try to choke it down isn't a surprise. The plot goes like this - two guys escaping from prison sneak onto a rocket in somebody's backyard. A scientist who believes he can make it to the Moon without help or control from the government. As the government plans to take over his project the next day, he kidnaps the two escaped jail birds to help him launch his rocket and go to the Moon. He also ends up with his helper, and his helper's girlfriend, as they all end up going to the Moon. Funny how the government told him they would be back in the morning but never left anybody to guard the rocket? Well, anyway, on the Moon they find rock creatures but no Hercules, a city of women, and the black creatures. Well, one creature which looks like a spider. A spider if you mean one of those puppets from the Muppet Show. Or maybe the huge spider from Ator The Invincible - you may know Ator as MST3K made fun of the Cave Dwellers which was the second film in the series. Sorry, off track again.
This movie was before sexism was frowned upon, so there is a lot of that. It was like somebody was trying to make a Amazon Women On The Moon copy-cat but took themselves too seriously.
Sound bad enough? Sad to say it is so bad that even Mike, Kevin, and Bill have a hard time trying to make it funny. The movie is just so bad that calling it a B-Movie would be an insult to those B-Movies. Outside of a few jokes dealing with Muppets, I can't remember much of the movie and I watched it about four times over the weekend after getting the DVD. To me it was just amazing to realize that somebody made this movie - that somebody thought it was worth filming! Also I seem to handle bad sci-fi better than other types of bad movies - maybe I enjoy pain?
You may wish to skip this set unless you are a fan of the movie itself.

The RiffTrax soundtrack seemed to come across much quieter than the movie's original sound making it difficult to follow what Mike, Kevin and Bill said. I was constantly having to repeat gags for my aunt who just couldn't hear what the Riffers were saying most of the time.