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Earth vs. the Flying Saucers Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 34 Reviews)

The Best!
This is one of the best of the 50's science fiction movies. It has it all: Hugh Marlowe, Harryhausen effects, flying saucers crashing into the Capitol Bldg.! A must have!

well before "independence day" "earth" took over first!
say what you will,but this classic from the 50's is every bit as good or better than "independence day"!!!
aliens land on earth and tell us to give up or die,well you know the answer to that,look at the title.
the great ray harryhausen gives us some of his best stop-motion f/x in this one and it is still great fun,and family friendly! my boys love it,give it a try!

Quirky 50s scifi, but the acting is utterly flat
One of the things I argue about with my kids is the need for scifi/fantasy to have perfect effects, which is the disease of our nearly plotless formulas that come out these days. There are great exceptions, of course, such as Star Wars and Harry Potter.

This film is one of those old wonderfully raw ones, which I used to watch afternoons after school with a sense of fear and awe. While the effects are light years from what we expect as a minimum today, they are fun if you let yourself enjoy them, which occasionally my kids do. It is kind of campy for us, and we do talk about them as well.

However, the 1950s shiboleths notwithstanding, this is a flawed film. First, the plot isn't all that great: the aliens are simply evil, though there are some fun subtlties to their technologies and methods. So there are few surprises. Second, the acting in my view was awful: wooden dialogue delivered without style, stereotypical characters that are easy to label, etc. I mean, the acting really is abysmal. Third, the effects are not nearly as fun as those in RH's later films, as this was so low budget. Nonetheless, they are far better than the Ed Wood style films in that they aim for serious scifi and they do have atmosphere.

Recommended with these caveats in mind. It is all in fun.

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