Reviews

Being the sci-fi fan that I am, I was always curious about this film. So I was excited to see Journey to the Far Side of the Sun finally get released on an affordable DVD (the previous print had been fetching $100 on eBay - I'm sure those people wish they had their money back - but more about that in a second).

Anyway, the premise of this film (just like Twilight Zone's "The Parallel") is that there is an undiscovered planet resembling Earth on the "other side of the sun". This planet is of course exactly like ours except that it's inverted. This basically means their letters are reversed and people drive on the wrong side of the road.

Sound intriguing? Well that's basically all there is to this film. The first hour or so is dedicated to the preparations for the journey to this other planet. It's just tedious scenes of switches being pressed, banal dialog, etc. There's no point to it whatsoever. Gerry Anderson managed to find the most boring British actors in the history of cinema to play most of the roles. I mean they are so dull I'm surprised the crew was able to stay awake to finish the film.

Anyway, once the crew FINALLY lands on the planet (after an interminable sequence of the astronauts sitting and literally sleeping in the cockpit), Roy Thinnes notices the copy is all backwards on a bottle of cologne and hops back on another ship to tell people about what he has discovered. Oops he never gets to do it as he crash lands and dies. The end! Oh wait, there's a bonus scene of one of the space executives hurling himself into a mirror in his wheelchair at the end. I guess he wanted out of this film too.

I'm really surprised a film like this could get made even back in the 60s. Rent if you must. DO NOT BUY.