S02E05 - Rocket Attack USA

Plot

Short: After successfully faking his death, the mad scientist is unsuccessful in retrieving his wife and instead accidentally kills her. Convinced that his enemies are at fault for her death, he makes moves to utilize his inventions to gain revenge. But those who oppose him still seek to find the secret to his discoveries before they fall into the wrong hands.

Film: Tensions between the USA and Soviet Russia are at a fever pitch, and it is believed that a nuclear war is approaching. With the recent launch of Sputnik, America fears that a nuclear strike from Russia is imminent and sends a spy to Russia in order to learn more. When he discovers that Russia plans on firing a nuclear missile, he quickly sets out to stop it. But can he destroy it in time?


Movie Review

I must say...I am very surprised. Surprised that in the second episode of The Phantom Creeps, the cliffhanger was not resolved how I imagined it. Instead of the protagonists bailing out of the plane with parachutes at the last minute, they are still inside the plane when it crashes, with the crash actually killing one of them (the mad scientist's wife). Unfortunately, it also introduces the absurdity that the other protagonist survives the plane crash with nary a scratch on him, so perhaps predictability would've been the best route here.

Outside of this aversion of cliche, The Phantom Creeps is terrible, perhaps even worse than Radar Men from the Moon. Okay, perhaps not that bad, but it still has numerous problems. Outside of the overacting (poor Bela Lugosi), the plot is a tangled mess. It seems that the writers for this serial series had no idea what kind of story they wanted, so they simply sat down at their typewriters, began typing, and never stopped. There seems to be no genuine motivation behind these characters' actions, just generic reasoning and blind acceptance.

And the characters...what characters? Outside of Bela Lugosi, who is sadly nothing more than a caricature here, none of the actors give anything even close to a motivated performance. They all seem as bored as I did while watching this, and they leave no impression about themselves. Hell, I can't even remember any of their names five minutes after the short's cliffhanger, which is the predictable car-run-off-the-road stunt pulled by Commando Cody (twice!). And this time, I doubt they will give any surprises.

And now for the movie...or is it really a movie? I've identified several films on MST3K before that I don't consider to be real movies, but Rocket Attack USA shows those symptoms more strongly than any other film I've seen so far on this show. This isn't a movie more than it is a propaganda piece. Instead of a plot, we get precariously strung together skits that try to resemble a plot. Now, this kind of editing may have worked if they had done it all the way through the film (it still would've been bad, but at least it would've showed some competence), but things are completely derailed in the last portion of the film that shows this movie's true intentions.

What am I talking about? First, let's discuss the portion of the film that could, in one sense, be considered a movie. Even this section of the film is stretching the definition, as it's not so much a narrative as it is a collection of segments stitched together by narrations. The story practically jumps from narration to scene to narration to scene, from overview of things to focused story and back again. It's incredibly jarring, giving the viewer no time to get attached to any of the characters, who might as well be played by finger puppets.

The story told between the narrations could've been potentially intriguing - a spy story told within the backdrop of the Cold War - but instead it's a painful bore. It's only near the end when there's anything resembling something interesting, and even then it's poorly executed. The story also ends on a very down note (from the US's point of view, at least), with both of the main characters killed without completing their mission. Normally that would be the end of such matters, right?

Not at all, because as soon as this narrative ends, the film tacks on the most overblown piece of propaganda this side of "Reefer Madness". In an effort to scare the audience about the dangers of nuclear war, the final handful of scenes in Rocket Attack USA show several idyllic scenes of Americana before Russia launches its nuclear missile at New York City, sending people into a panic as they scramble for shelter. The last scene is that of the missile actually striking the city, killing millions, and the narrator pleading with the audience not to make this scene "the end" in real life, or something.

Coupled with a painfully disjointed story, this propaganda piece completely destroys any narrative in the film. It could've likely worked better as a stand alone short, although its kitsch would still be painfully obvious today, but as part of the film's actual story, it fails miserably in adding anything to the movie as a whole.

Notice that I haven't really discussed any other aspect of this film, like the acting, the direction, the dialogue, etc.? That's because the ridiculous nature of this film's patchwork story overshadows everything else. Sure, I could mention the acting is predictably wooden, there is a shoe-horned love scene between two of the protagonists, and the characters often make mind-numbingly stupid decisions, but none of that is even worth mentioning compared to Rocket Attack's pathetic narrative.

In short, a completely worthless of piece of cinema that should only be watched by those who desire a full-length 1950s era propaganda piece.



MST3K Review

Damn, now this is what MST3K is all about. From the very beginning (the short) to the very end (the propaganda portion of the film), Joel and the bots were firing on all cylinders. Riffs came left and right with no mercy, and their timing was impeccable. Contrasted against season 1 episodes and even the first few episodes of season 2, this episode hit all the right notes and never let up. A classic episode of season two, as well as the series as a whole.


Stinger Review

For the first time in the series, MST3K introduces the stinger, that beloved short scene from the film that plays at the very end of the credits. Selected as the most bizarre and goofiest moment of the movie, the stinger is meant to end each episode on a final laugh without any help from Joel and the bots, to show that the movie often doesn't need to be riffed to be humiliated.

For the first stinger, Best Brains couldn't have selected a better stinger than the scene of the blind man walking nonchalantly down a street as air raid sirens blare, only to woodenly cry out "help me" when someone runs past him. It's so badly acted and so awkwardly directed that it doesn't make sense no matter what the context is. In other words, the perfect stinger.