tapanih
I've read good(?)reviews about The Humanoid(1979)and I saw this "FILM" few days ago..I could not believe my eyes! It was SO BAD,Worst ever.No class,no style,no nothing.Just waste of time and film.I really was expecting a good sci-fi movie,but the very first frame revealed the ugly truth! This was advertised as an "Italian Star Wars".How such name as Richard Kiel would guarantee a good movie is beyond me.And Ennio Morricone's music,he has made better scores.If one has intentions of making a rip-off,then make a good rip-off! Study the movies,make GOOD costumes,get GOOD actors,you know the drill.Humanoid is clearly made in haste,to get some money.Yes there was sand,rocks,lasers,black helmets,Force-like mind control,spaceships,dog-robot,futuristic towns and all that but so poorly executed that I felt shame for the producers of the film.While watching this "masterpiece" I kept waiting if it would get any better but it got worse by the minute.After an hour of watching I turned the TV off and went to bed.The late time when it aired should have been a sign...
Simon Key
I saw this in the cinema when it first came out, riding the Star Wars wave like a stoned surfer.I managed to get hold of a VHS copy some years back, and when I viewed it with adult eyes, I was astounded by how dreadful the whole film is.The film is so bad in every way that it manages to reach the 'Plan-9' point and gains entertainment value from being so crummy and downright lame.I have to agree, I'd sit down to watch this film with a nostalgic bag of cheesy Wotsits and a bottle of fizzy pop over laying eyes on the risible Phantom Menace any day!
Mappy the Mouse
....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....
Michael A. Martinez
Aside from the goofy special effects and silly dialog, there's still plenty of lameness in this low-budget Italian/Turkish STAR WARS ripoff ...enough to keep most people rolling around the floor in laughter. The "villain" played by Ivan Rassimov (SHOCK, EATEN ALIVE, ULTIMO MONDO CANNIBAL) is one of the biggest pansies I've seen... even if his costume does look just like Darth Vader's... from his silly comments like "so you have come to battle me at last, princely hero!" to the way he cracks the whip around his cronies like "you failed to kill the girl! You are stripped of your command for 100 days!", I couldn't take him seriously at all. Wouldn't most villains kill their own men for disobeying them? No wonder the silly troupe of Leonard Mann, Corrine Clery, and Richard Kiel destroy his entire army so easily... and his death has to be the lamest ever filmed... "ack, my blue screen is dying!"The Humanoid has a dynamite cast though, from Arthur Kennedy (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA) to Barbara Bach (CAVEMAN) to Massimo Serato (AUTOPSY). Even better is the crew... from Enzo G. Castellari to Giannetto De Rossi, Antonio Margheriti, and Ennio Morricone. The only problem here really is that all these cool people did their jobs BADLY... This film is not only hilariously cheap, it's a real snoozer, especially because of Morricone's howlingly awful "sleepy spacey music" which never stops! The score has no tune or melody to it, it's just random music, but synthesized to a point where it's even worse than Morricone's score for COLD EYES OF FEAR. I'm usually a fan of stuff like this but you have to draw the line somewhere. This film is lame beyond belief, though not quite as bad as STAR WARS EPISODE 1: "THE PHANTOM MENACE".
