MOON ZERO TWO (1969) ** At the time, with two people already there, overpopulation on the moon probably seemed like a ripe enough problem. It looks like one in the gloriously animated opening credits anyway-a problem of such magnitude that, shudder!, an American and Russian get on the same spaceship in order to escape, among others, a Dutchman. The film then takes a long time to regain the momentum of the credits, and only does so in a cowboy-style shootout rendered in slow motion due to gravity and space suits. It's entertaining enough for the most part, but you would have thought they could have found more to laugh at in the world's first major "Lunar Western." The funniest part is probably that they thought that it would become a genre. It's all presented with a light hand for Hammer-not much gore, pretty cool sets, and funny costumes. Catherine Schell does a great job of keeping her hair nice, but doesn't deliver as much enthusiasm to the role as you'd hope. James Olson might be a good everyman hero, but that's not who he's supposed to be. Don Ellis' incidental space jazz is stunningly appropriate on a scene-by-scene basis; not great music in and of itself, instead playing its part in apparent defiance to the rest of the film.
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