source: Saturn 3

Trailer—Saturn 3

Saturn 3

This movie is about a couple that lives on this outpost in space. They are lovers and their world is carefree and simple. That is until a criminal comes and builds a robot that goes insane. The problem with this movie is that there just isn't enough cast here to make this movie as cool as it should have been. The robot needed people to kill, but there were only three people around so it didn't really get to flex its muscle. On the plus side Kirk Douglas is good, and so is Harvey Kietal as the criminal. Fawcett isn't great, but she does ok. The plot should have included more though as a lot of this movie goes unexplained, like Kietal's character motivations, or why didn't anyone warn Kirk and Farrah that a criminal was out there. In the end this movie has its moments, but tends to become a bit tedious.

A lot of people bag on this film and I'm the first to admit that it is not a good film but I would be lying if I said I wasn't entertained by certain things in it. I was entertained by the incredibly bad set designs. Here's a film with a good budget, big stars and directed by the great Stanley Donen and it looks like it was filmed in someone's garage! And of course Farrah gets naked. Thank god for VHS and the pause button! If your wondering why Farrah was a sex symbol in the 70's freeze the scene where she takes her clothes off. And Keitel was creepy and his voice sounded different. Maybe it was dubbed but he gave a convincing menacing performance. Not a good film but the story had promise.

Would-be foreboding sci-fi looks all shiny and new, like a futuristic department store. Three good actors (Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas and Harvey Keitel) come off looking like incompetent dummies in this derivative, cardboard cartoon. When Keitel arrives at the space station of lovers Douglas and Fawcett, he is carrying a strange metal container. Douglas offers to carry it for him and Keitel answers, "NOOOOOOOO!" in a hilariously chilly manner that makes even Richard Burton's overacting seem tame by comparison. Poor Kirk and Farrah even strip down for this one (so much for the classy reputation of vet director Stanley Donen). There is a neat scene where robotic Hector takes a splinter from Farrah's eye, but her reaction afterward (rubbing it like a child and sticking her bottom lip out) is embarrassing. This is one step beyond, all right. It's so far out it's brain-dead. *1/2 from ****