The Bubble

source: The Bubble

Moviecut—The Bubble

The Bubble

... this will certainly be on it. The landscape in this movie is a bunch of dirt roads, with weird stuff stored by the side of the roads. Like you would find stored by the side of the roads in the back lots of a movie studio. Things like the bottom half of the Lincoln Memorial. Yes, I think it is fair to say that some movie exec looked out the window and said, "There's a whole bunch of weird junk stored behind the movie studio. Let's see if we can film a movie back there, for free, where we never film any movies." The only reason this was not as dreary as it could be was that it was possible to re-release it in 3-D, and there is one scene (the "floating tray of beer" scene) where that was a little fun. Around that time, the Guy (Michael Cole) was starring in The Mod Squad. And as for the Girl (Deborah Walley), well there was a time when guys would line up to see her in a movie. Amazing that Cole and Walley got talked into this movie.

The plot sounds interesting, like a Twilight Zone episode. However, the acting and script fail to deliver. The special effects (aside from 3d) leave a lot to be desired. For example, in one scene, they use floating rubber masks... like cheap rubber masks you can buy at any Halloween store in October in the United States. So, do not rent this movie for the plot. Where this movie shines is in 3d. This is the type of movie where the plot and acting were incidental. It's entire theme is to show off 3d. You'll be treated to things like a guy raking thin air, with the garden rake filmed to be coming out at you. You have two scenes of a bucket of dirt being lifted towards you, solely included because it looks somewhat cool in 3d. The 3d effects are much better than most 3d movies of today. Things have depth and actually seem to come out of the screen. However, let me reiterate once again, that is the only thing going for this movie.

When I saw this film, it was in the 1981-1982. It was titled Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth. It was the first of two movie bill at a local theater in Dayton, Ohio. I don't remember a lot of the movie. What I remember is the events around the 2nd movie a new movie was released and the title was John Carpenter's The Thing one of the star's in The Thing was Kurt Russell. He had just recently made a movie about Elvis Presley Most of the people in the audience were women with their kids and the Elvis gear on. Once the Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth was over the women were excited and they stayed until the husky dog got ripped open they left running in droves. That's my best memory for The Bubble aka Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth

A young couple (the guy is Michael Cole) find themselves in a mysterious town. I am guessing many retro sci-fi fans don't even know this film exists for the simple reason that the title - The Bubble - does not give any hint as to what genre of movie this is. Hit and miss best describes this flick. Cole does some great acting, the backlot town looks creepy enough, the moody musical score fits in well and there are some very well done moments that Under The Dome (2013) may have pinched. But this is a long movie that really needed to be a 25 minute or 50 minute TV episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. The ending is a bit average. Also, the 3D tricks (actors pointing things at the camera) are not welcome. I would suggest a late night viewing when you are not feeling very demanding.

Very hokey alien invasion plot but was the first (I think) 3-D movie to use polarized lenses as opposed to the old red/blue 3-D glasses. The effects were , for 1967, awesome and we were duly astounded. We went opening night and the theater in downtown New Orleans was packed. If this wasn't a 3-D movie, however, you could use it as a sedative. They kept the effects paced just enough to keep us all interested. Today it's a curiosity, conversation piece at best.

I always wanted to see a 3D Movie and I finally made it. It felt very odd wearing the funny glasses, but all in all it was well worth it. Some of the effects were amazing, especially the scene with the dancer. I liked that a lot. At other times the effect was more disturbing, especially at the beginning where there was an empty seat in the plane that seemed to be hanging in the air and looked really out of place. But sitting in row 10 and actually believing that you can touch something because it seems to be just in front of you is really amazing. The film itself was not really bad although there is not much of a plot. I enjoyed the eerie feeling, acting was adequate but I had the impression that some scenes were missing. The pilot disappears and reappears for no apparent reason and in the end the nightmare ends for no apparent reason. But if you do not expect to much from the plot you should be able to enjoy the experience.

The film maybe would have been able to escape its B-movie limits if Oboler gave signs of being a really good filmmaker, but the film is still burdened with a weak cast, or at least one Oboler can't get much from, and not much creativity in making the limited effects budget stretch. It has a tremendously weak ending and while the 3-D camera work is decent (the restoration looks nice), the filmmakers don't do much other than push things at the audience's face or do a couple other trick shots. As someone who likes both 3D and weird sci-fi, I found myself wanting to like this a lot more than I actually did.