Diagonaldi Very well executed

Executscan Expected more

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

thestarkfist First off, what war? Filming a war costs big bucks, (much like the real thing!). This mess barely had enough money to cover the paper mache for the sets. They shouldn't promise a war in the title if they couldn't deliver it. Rather the film should have been titled "Minor Disagreement Of The Planets" or "Trivial Skirmish Of The Planets". A war just ain't happening with this pile of film doo.And doo doo it truly is. It struck me as I was watching this thing that bad science fiction films seem to have an extra layer of crap slathered over them that one just doesn't experience in your run-of- the-mill bad biker flick. Maybe it's because the folks behind it are often bound and determined to make their entertainment "profound". This piece of tripe can certainly plead Mea Culpa to that, although it misses its mark by a thousand light years at least. To get to the heart of the matter, this movie displays incompetence in every frame. The writing, acting, directing, editing, scoring, etc. areall absolutely abysmal. To be sure it wears its influences on its sleeve like a badge of honor. As others have noted, the "2001", "Space 1999" and "Star Trek" references abound, but are all introduced to little affect. The editing jumps from one scene to another with little narrative sense, making the story almost impossible to follow. So many elements are introduced only to be just left hanging by the script that it is difficult to distinguish a plot point from yet another pointless scene. With confusion served up in super sized proportions a coherent sound track might have at least helped us to know exactly how the director intended us to respond to what we're being shown. Unfortunately the score is as inept as the rest of the movie. It jumps from classical elements (a nod to Kuberick, I think) to synthesized bleeps and squawks with no apparent relation to what is being shown on the screen. At one point we are treated to an exterior shot of the space ship and a pop song about being in space starts up only to be mercifully cut short after only a few seconds by the editor.Thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000 the title of worst movie has been taken from "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and bestowed upon "Manos, the Hands of Fate". But at least Manos actually manages to tell a comprehensible story, albeit not very well. This hairball of a movie can't even manage that. They must have changed the script every day on this thing. That is the only explanation I can come up with for it being so confused, garbled and nonsensical. See it if you must but don't expect anything like real entertainment.

Guy Gilray This is one of the only movies I can watch over and over and always enjoy. I usually put it on just as I'm going to bed and let it lead me off to dreamy land . . . It's true that many people don't like this movie, or just consider it a poor Italian rip-off of Star Wars or Space 1999, or something else, but for some odd reason that I haven't been able to figure out, it's extremely compelling and really holds my attention. Yes, the sets are cheap, the costumes are pretty silly, and the special effects look extremely fake, but even so, some rare quality seeps through all the external cheesiness and something sticks with you! There are some unique ideas expressed in this film. There is also technology not seen in other movies. For example, the view screen on the bridge of the spaceship MK31 often shows a view of the MK31 itself as it files through space, as though there is some type of remote camera flying behind the ship, or beside it, for the sole purpose of the crew being able to view their own ship in flight. How this is achieved, I don't know. It's obviously a technology far ahead of what we have. It's not the kind of detail you notice right away, but once you do, it's fascinating! There's a lot of food for thought here. I thought about this movie for days after I first saw it and then began to watch it regularly. After a while, all other movies looked weird in comparison. One of the most interesting movies I've ever seen.

wes-connors Captain Alex Hamilton aka "Mike Leighton (John Richardson) and his team of astronauts land on an alien world and agree to help its population battle a cyber entity that has taken control of the planet," according to the DVD sleeve. Re-titled "Cosmos: War of the Planets" for English language listeners, this wretched film features the standard science fiction storyline involving a futuristic society being taken over by the machines it created. Those involved must have been asking, "What button do I have to push to get me out of this lousy picture?" * Anno zero, guerra nello spazio (1977) Alfonso Brescia ~ John Richardson, Yanti Somer, Vassili Karis, Katia Christine

Gary R. Peterson Am I the only person who enjoyed COSMOS: WAR OF THE PLANETS? I mean, it's not STARCRASH, but it made for an enjoyable 90 minutes or so.The film was clearly inspired by SPACE: 1999, from the costumes to the ship's layout and even the story. How many SPACE: 1999 episodes were there where somebody goes crazy and stalks through Moonbase Alpha, forcing open doors and throttling crewmembers who don't have sense to run? The 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY swipes were already, mentioned, but how about the homage to Woody Allen's 1973 sci-fi spoof SLEEPER (or, to paraphrase Tony Roberts in STARDUST MEMORIES, "they just outright ripped it off")? Remember the Orgasmatron where you can satisfy all your baser needs fully clothed with the help of a computer? COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT was a pretty good science fiction movie from 1970 starring Eric Braedon that dealt with the topic addressed in COSMOS: computers becoming sentient and running amok. STAR TREK tackled the topic a few years earlier in "The Ultimate Computer" episode with William "Blacula" Marshall and his M-5 computer which, like WIZ in this movie, was designed to make man's reasoning and initiative obsolete. COSMOS' Captain Hamilton shares many similarities with Captain James T. Kirk, among them a distrust of machines and a power of seduction over beautiful but icy women. (One more TREK reference: that ancient two-pillared structure sure reminded me of the "time doughnut" from "City on the Edge of Forever").One character that really intrigued me and he was gone too soon was Ytor. When he came on board the bridge in uniform I sat up, thinking things were getting even more interesting. But after some really wild kung fu fighting he was gone.Yes, the movie is confusing. I was paying very close attention and still was left confused at points, but it really didn't matter. This was a very episodic movie; in fact I wondered if this wasn't several episodes of an Italian sci-fi series spliced together.It's worth watching, one of those movies where the sum of its parts exceed the whole. The lampooning of the media's distorting and sensationalizing what the military is trying to cover up was fantastic and timely.I saw COSMOS as one of the films in Treeline's 50 SciFi Classics box set and while the print is reasonably clear and colorful the framing is way off. This was obviously a widescreen picture and here it is presented full-frame but with the top and bottoms of people's faces sometimes chopped off as if the image was enlarged and just the center of the frame shot (no pan and scan).One word on the possibly confusing ending (hey, why should it be different from the rest of the movie?). I believe only Hamilton is hearing the ominous voice of the computer. Everyone else is celebrating Crewman Peter's becoming a Dad and their soon arrival back on Earth. But Hamilton hears in the ship's computer the coming of the technophilia that ravaged Ytor's planet. He experiences an epiphany that Earth is following closely in the footsteps of that doomed planet. It's a strong thought-provoking ending.