'METEOR'.....AIP COMES LATE TO DISASTERWORLD.....WITH MUD, SWEAT AND FEARS..........

 Meteor (1979)

        American International Pictures, that tireless purveyor of Drive-In/Grindhouse pulp throughout the 50's and 60's was winding down to the end its existence by the time it tried its own version of an all-star, special effects laden disaster movie. 

        The result?   Despite its interesting cast and worthy scientific premise, the film looked tired, cheap, repetitious and stuffed with the usual connect-the-dots tropes everyone had already seen in previous disasterpieces. 

        AIP no doubt opened up its checkbook to recruit Sean Connery, Karl Malden, Natalie Wood, Henry Fonda, Trevor Howard, Brian Keith and Martin Landau and they duly perform their lines with just enough professionalism to justify their paychecks. 

         But the studio skimped on its outer space effects so the sequences that should have been the most eye popping were a visual bore and close to laughable. 

          But let's at least credit the film with being ahead of the curve in presenting a "Giant Meteor due to crash into and destroy Earth" scenario.  19 years after this film's release, two Hollywood studios would battle each other for box office supremacy with separate 'Meteor Hits Earth' movies, "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact".

        In 'Meteor', the U.S. and Russia joint forces to eliminate the threat by synching up their separate orbiting defense satellites, each of them laden with nukes. (The nukes, of course, would normally be pointed at U.S. and Russian targets for all out war, an idea that fired up incoming President Ronald Reagan's 'Star Wars' idea.....)

         From an underground bunker adjacent to the New York subway system (don't ask) U.S. and Russian scientists (Connery, Keith) try to reposition their floating orbiting nukes at the oncoming meteor in the hopes of obliterating it.

          But meanwhile, smaller broken off pieces of the hurtling rock hit the planet, bringing on a quite effective avalanche sequence. 

          But what really sunk this film was the endless, interminable shots of the meteor and the array of space nukes, neither of which were at all visually interesting to watch.  These excruciatingly dull sequences forced composer Laurence Rosenthal into pumping them up with constant orchestral bombast that quickly becomes annoying and unintentionally funny.

         Speaking of funny, at last we come to the film's showstopper.......in which Connery and the supporting cast flee the bunker as the New York subway walls crack open, releasing a ocean of mud. The overall effect of this made us recall the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, where the audience and guests have enormous gallons of green slime dumped on them. Or what happens in the White House when Trump's diaper overloads.

     And it's a wonder Blake Edwards didn't think of this mud tsunami for Peter Sellers in the "Pink Panther" series. 

          So in no way could we ever accuse this film's cast of just taking their roles to pick up an easy paycheck. AIP really made them work for their money, which is more than they ever did for Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello in their "Beach Party" movies......

          For those who've always dreamed of seeing Sean Connery, Natalie Wood and Karl Malden swimming in brown ooze, here's your dream come true. 

         Disaster movie completists might want to give it a viewing, but we doubt they'll ever want to sit through it again. 

          Neither would we. 1 star (*).