This Island Earth

This Island Earth was shown on the sci-fi channel without English subtitles, so I actually do not know whether the film has a Danish title. I doubt it was ever released in this country, but I do not know. Both Halliwell's and Maltin are enthusiastic about the film, but in 1998 it really does not hold up. A great deal of time has no doubt been spent on the handsome effects, but at the expense of the story. In several places its logic does not hang together.

Cal Meacham is a talented scientist working on nuclear power. He is lured into joining a larger research team made up of some of the world's best nuclear scientists. They work under ideal conditions in a secluded location, but their hosts and employers are not quite normal. Meacham meets two colleagues who hesitantly reveal that they are more or less hostages, and that their captors have features that differ from those of humans.

Meacham is in fact working for an alien people whose planet is threatened by an aggressive race. Only by maintaining a protective shield powered by huge amounts of nuclear energy can the alien race withstand the attacks. The humans are to help them produce atomic energy in double-quick time, but it is too late, as Meacham and his colleague Ruth Adams can witness with their own eyes when they travel with their host, the friendly Exeter, to his planet. In the end it is simply a matter of getting off the planet alive.