Director: David Bradley
Cast: Ken Clark, Michi Kobi, Tom Conway, Anthony Dexter

Often when I write a review for this web site, I will begin by talking about some topic that is not immediately associated with movies, and then move to talking about how the topic is handled in the motion picture world. With this review, I will start by doing the complete opposite - I will talk about something directly movie-related, and then afterwards I will talk about how that something can apply to the rest of the world. What I want to talk about first is movies that are co-productions between different countries. This practice definitely has some advantages, like being able to raise enough money for a budget of a movie that one single country might not be able to afford. It also can increase the available talent pool for a movie from actors to composers. There have definitely been times when co-productions have paid off. For example, with the Italian-Canadian co-production Strange Shadows In An Empty Room, the Italians made sure that the Canadians would be moved in a way to ensure that the end results would be a real movie. But other times, things can go very wrong on a movie co-production. In the 1970s, Communist Russia teamed up with capitalist America to make the family movie The Blue Bird. Even if you don't know about the behind-the-scenes stories, you have probably guessed correctly that with two completely political systems as well as movie-making systems, there were constant clashes as to what to do and how to do it, and the production struggled for an incredibly long time to be completed. When it was eventually completed and released, the movie got savage reviews and had an extremely low turnout by audiences all over the world, making for a very big financial loss as well as great embarrassment for everyone associate with the movie.

On the other hand, when communist China teamed up with capitalist America years later to make the Jason Statham movie The Meg, the result was a very sizable worldwide hit at the box office, despite the fact that the movie got mixed reviews. So it's definitely possible for two (or more) very different governments to get together to make a movie people want to see. It's also a good thing in that if two or more very different governments make a successful movie, it may encourage further cooperation in areas besides the motion picture industry. There have been many examples of this over the years. There has been the creation of the United Nations Emergency Force, made up of individuals from a number of countries to assist with keeping the peace in areas of the globe where there is great conflict. There have also been trade pacts between various countries, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement. But in this present day, probably the most well-known example of nations working together has been with the International Space Station. Built, organized, and maintained by five different space agencies around the world (the United States, Canada, Russia, Japan, and Europe), the International Space Station has been run and occupied for over 26 years, and over the years has invited a great number of people from various countries from Brazil to South Korea. And with all of this cooperation, scientists from many different countries have been able to run various scientific experiments and various means of exploring what's out there beyond Earth and the space station.

Despite the sometimes-frosty relationships the participating countries back on Earth, things have been pretty stable on the International Space Station. Thinking about it, it makes me wonder that when mankind decides to go beyond the orbit of Earth on manned missions, will we get this same level of cooperation? Different planets have different features for sure, and some of these features many prove to be valuable once discovered. And once that happens, there may be a lot of debate (or worse) between countries. Fortunately, we can put aside that speculation, because travelling on manned missions to other planets is a long way into the future. But when I happened to get a DVD copy of the movie 12 To The Moon, I wanted to see it to see if it could detail issues of space cooperation beyond the orbit of the Earth. As you may have guessed, the "12" in the title of the movie are a group of astronauts from all over the world, among them an American (Ken Clark, A Man Called Sledge), a Russian (Tom Conway, Bride Of The Gorilla), an Israeli (Richard Weber), and a Japanese (Michi Kobi). They have all gathered for mankind's first expedition to the moon, with the intent of making sure that the moon will always be a kind of neutral territory for all of the nations on Earth. You've probably correctly guessed that there are some personal conflicts between the astronauts during the trip and when they first land on the moon. But soon all the astronauts realize that their personal problems are small potatoes compared to the problem that arises once they make contact with intelligent life hidden below the surface of the moon. That problem being that the moon beings aren't taking lightly humans getting so close to them, and are prepared to fight if they are further threatened.

It is perhaps inevitable that a movie 65 years old that deals with space exploration would come across today as dated to at least a significant degree... though I am sure that current space movies such as Gravity will look dated in the year 2090. Anyway, since you may know that most space travel movies of the period when 12 To The Moon were made usually didn't have lavish budgets, you've probably correctly guessed that the movie's depiction of space travel is, to put it charitably, lacking. The most obvious way is with its special effects. The excessive use of stock footage to show rockets blasting off or flying in the air should have been obvious to audiences way back in 1960. When the movie is forced to make its own effects to show the rocket flying in space, not only does it have to reuse certain shots several times, you can sometimes see the starts in the background shining through the poorly superimposed rocket. As for the interior of the rocket, if you've seen practically any other space flight movie of this period, you will be able to correctly guess what it's like inside this particular rocket... except maybe for the lawn chairs that all the astronauts strap down in when the rocket takes off from earth. It also won't be a surprise to many viewers that the exit hatch of the spacecraft is only about five meters off the ground, giving the question of how underneath the hatch the makers of the rocket were able to put in enough fuel for the rocket to take off from Earth, break out of Earth's orbit, and keep blasting flames out of its rear all the way to the moon. (Needless to say, there is still enough fuel for the rocket to blast non-stop all the way back to Earth later in the movie.)

When the astronauts reach the moon, things are somewhat better, such as the depiction of the moonscape and the interior of a cave that the astronauts find. But all the going-ons on the surface of the moon still fail to generate that much interest, for a reason that also plagues the parts of the movie not taking place on the moon. To put it bluntly, there is no sense of awe, wonder, or just plain old excitement. I mean, this is multiple countries working together to make the world's first moon landing, so there should have been some great feelings generated. But director David Bradley (Dragstrip Riot) instead gives most of the movie a matter-of-fact feeling. After the rocket lands on the moon, eleven of the twelve astronauts quickly get out and immediately start poking around as if they have been there many times before. For that matter, when things you might consider disastrous happen, it's pretty much shrugged off and forgotten about by everybody, whether an astronaut gets pulled down in space quicksand, or discovering two of their own have not only disappeared, but have been kidnapped by aliens. The aliens, by the way, are never seen, only communicating to the astronauts by electronic written messages, which are written in an alien language but for some reason can be translated by a quick immediate glance from one of the astronauts. The aliens, by the way, make various actions that don't make a heck of a lot of sense. It's made clear by them that they don't like the humans visiting the moon, since they believe that from observing humans for years that mankind is corrupt while they have no emotions. Then why didn't they try to prevent the rocket trip from starting in the first place, especially when later it's made clear what powers the aliens have? For that matter, if they are without human-like emotions, why do they even care that humans are poking around on the moon, or get curious about Earth phenomenon such as love and cats?

The script for 12 To The Moon does not only fail to make the alien characters interesting, but also for the twelve astronauts, not just with their severe lack of reaction to catastrophe. Although I was surprised and glad that the two non-Caucasian astronauts (a Nigerian man and a Japanese woman) didn't get killed or harmed, they don't get all that much to do. There are feeble stabs to give the other astronauts something to do, but as I said, they are feeble. The Israeli astronaut has hostility towards the Russian astronaut (which was somehow not noticed by anyone until after the start of the space mission), but then this hostility is forgotten about. Later, the Israeli astronaut finds out about a deep family secret of the German astronaut, but this too is immediately forgotten about. Naturally, there is also a scene when one of the astronauts attempts to turn traitor (nope, not the Russian, to some surprise), but after he's defeated the movie forgets about him and his actions for the rest of the movie. The screenplay isn't just weak when it comes to depicting the characters, alien or human. There are additional dumb moments, such as when a foreign radio station reports on an unbelievably dire situation in North America and then says the station is immediately returning to its normal programming. That dire situation, by the way, is handled by the astronauts in a manner that seems incredibly unconvincing even for those viewers who don't have all that much knowledge of atomic science, or just science in general. Dumb moments like those I mentioned that are in 12 To The Moon do occasionally provoke some chuckles, but the movie as a whole doesn't work well even on a camp level. Though inept, the movie is usually so solemn in its ineptness that the entire package unfolds in a dreary manner for the most part. This is a movie that might have been more entertaining had someone of the period like Ed Wood or Phil Tucker been in the director's chair. The movie would still be inept - maybe more so - but I'm sure it would have been more lively and unintentionally amusing.

(Posted May 28, 2025)