First Men in the Moon Reviews

After the artistic high of Jason and the Argonauts, First Men in the Moon is a drastic comedown. Here is a Ray Harryhausen movie where the limited budget shows, and instead of a cornucopia of tangibly strange stop-motion critters we’re treated to men in rubber suits. This Harryhausen film takes over an hour to give you what you came here for. Consider that the first cinematic sin against it.

Another H.G. Wells adaptation that plays fast-and-loose with the source material, First Men in the Moon takes kernels of good ideas and does nothing with them. It takes too long to get going, waiting roughly forty-five minutes to plop us on the moon to then spend another forty-five minutes doing a slow build that fizzles out long before the climax. The thudding humor, pounding the same vaudevillian key strokes over and over again, dominates too much of the narrative and proves more cumbersome than welcome. Consider these more cinematic sins.

There are highly imaginative and interesting visual concepts at play here, like the crystalline and stone cavern palace of the moon’s alien race. The three Harryhausen creations appear here, with two of them potentially hinting at a caste system within the alien race. A ruler with a gigantic head and a researcher are the only stop-motion aliens, standing in stark contrast with their lithe bodies and imposing height. The vast majority of the aliens are drones that are squatter and walk as if they’re folding in half. If this was supposed to purposefully state something about their society, we never get a square answer with the time spent on the moon rushed and muddled.

Also during this sojourn through the alien’s palatial quarters, our heroes run into the caterpillar-like creature that thrashes about. The sight of the caterpillar-thing and the aliens fighting is the dopey highlight of this clumsy film. Call me crazy, but if we had truncated the first half, spent more time on the moon exploration, completely removed the flashback structure, and spent more time on these ludicrous moments of pure spectacle, First Men in the Moon would have been a far better bit of B-movie schlock. Then there’s the persistent problem of Martha Hyer’s forced character which boils down to a waste of a highly talented actress. Try as Hyer might to bring something valuable to this character, she frequently grinds things to a halt or proves more unnecessary than anything else.

I’ve lost count of just how many cinematic sins we’ve piled up, but there’s not enough good here to tilt the scales towards enjoyably silly. The otherworldly moments come too late in the film to undo some of your wandering interest. If you’re a fan of Harryhausen like I am, you can wait to visit this film. There’s just not much of his magic or imprint here to really give a hearty recommendation in spite of its problems.