Movie Review: The Humanoid (1979)

Over on my personal Facebook page, I like to leave movie reviews of whatever I've watched that evening. Not with the expectation that anyone cares or anything. It's more of a personal log, jotting down my thoughts, what worked and what didn't. That kind of thing. And it encourages me to try new things.

But they've gotten some traction, and I thought I'd share. If you guys don't like it, cool. But if you do, maybe we can have a movie watch-a-long thing?

Anyway, on to the review:

Today, I watched The Humanoid, one of the most blatant Star Wars rip-offs I've ever seen. It was slow, bizarre, and wildly hilarious.

I knew I was in for something special when one of the opening lines was, 'Do not fail me Kraven. And make sure you kill that Barbara Gibson woman.'

Basically, take all the trappings of Star Wars--laser guns, big ships, guys in shiny, black samurai armor--and give it the plot of that meme where you have an unstoppable, immortal snail out to get you.

Blam Blam! Shoot him with lasers!
Nothing's working!
Break out the micro-atomics! Crush him in a hydraulic press!
What if we just... leave?
I guess that'd work, yeah.

Anyway, that goes on for a while, then this Chinese kid in a karate gi waves his hands funny at the monster, and takes the control bead off his head. Yeah, he was being controlled by a Darth Vader-type and this evil scientist guy. So the monster is our friend now!

They then recruit the monster to go stop the bad guys, and proceed to blow the evil base all to hell in one of the most ridiculous examples of 'that should not have worked' I have ever seen, set to a soundtrack that could only have been written by the Teletubbies.

By the way, the Chinese kid was actually the f***ing Dalai Lama the whole time. I'm dead serious. At the end of the movie, he fades away to return to Tibet. I about lost it!