'The Phantom Planet' is an extremely dull and talky sci-fi quickie set in 1980, by which time (as in Gerry Anderson's 'UFO') we Earthlings have established a base on the moon (where the communications officer interestingly enough is played by a Japanese actress (Akemi Tami), although we see and hear very little from her).Most of the music (plainly library material) is actually pretty good. And it's so far, so dull until we eventually arrive on the surface of the planet Rheton (actually an asteroid), which resembles an enormous Chicken McNugget. It's at this point that the film delivers it's one real surprise, which I won't divulge here as so many others have, as it has remarkably little bearing on anything else that follows.The Rhetons' costumes look as if they were left over from a movie set in ancient Rome; while the sets and the duel fought stripped to the waist between the film's two alpha males over the heroine anticipate one of the cheesier episodes of 'Star Trek'. Rheton's elderly ruler, Sesom (Francis X. Bushman) explains the primitive drabness of their present existence by claiming that the ill-effects from the unprecedented amount of leisure time resulting from labour-saving technology were solved by abandoning modern technology and returning to the simple life (late 20th Century capitalism certainly did a good job of licking this particular worry, if little else). Not that we see much evidence of good honest toil taking up much of the time of those Rhetons that we actually meet; all twenty of them. (Maybe all the real work is being done by slaves.) Nor do we see any bookcases, so it presumably didn't occur to the Rhetons to use all that unaccustomed leisure to read or write books. Their frugal existence, however, hasn't stopped them from harnessing "the magnetic forces of Rheton" to create a hi-tech defence system against attacking enemy ships piloted by aliens called Solorites (in scenes which recall the climaxes of 'This Island Earth' and 'Star Wars'), and creating force fields within which to imprison a captured Solorite (played by an uncredited Richard Kiel) and 'disintegrating gravity plates' in the floor to vapourise anyone who stands on them.

Classic black and white B movie silliness. Pay attention to the "monster" - the Solorite prisoner. That's Richard Kiel, better known as Jaws, and star of many wonderful films.The film begins with an annoying narration. In the first 'action' scene, we are introduced to two characters by literally introducing them. It's on par with that short story we wrote in third grade. Then those two guys get blown out of the sky by an asteroid. After that, the rest of the film is a dramatic improvement. It appears to have been filmed in one small studio with a minimum of sets, and virtually no special effects. Only a kid at heart who loves theater and science fiction would appreciate this small 'gem.' One has to think of it more as civic theater than as a movie production. Phantom Planet took its inspiration from early 20th century pulp fiction and a lot of 'Tarzan' but it managed to fail utterly.

It took about 20 minutes of boring bits to get to the asteroid and a little bit interesting stuff. It's not bad for a 1950s 5 Sci-Fi, not a good film but not too bad either.It's about an astronaut who sent into space and his ship is drawn to the asteroid by it's gravitational pull. His ship lands, he steps out looks around and falls over... then he shrinks. He is captured by the small people that lives on the asteroid, he's put to trial then let go. He is told that if he gets back to Earth he would immediately grow back to normal size but he can never leave the asteroid anyway.The men in the film must have gone to John Wayne's school of acting because they sure seem to try to talk like John Wayne. LOL.The film is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It's a little bit interesting, mostly drab but watchable (barely).3.5/10

An astronaut is forced to land on an asteroid. He encounters a race of tiny people and soon he too shrinks to their size. It turns out that this 'planet' has an atmosphere that shrinks people to six inches in height. Soon he joins forces with them to battle their evil alien enemies, the Solarites.Strictly speaking The Phantom Planet should really have been called The Phantom Asteroid. But let's be honest, glaring details like this don't matter very much when it comes to 50's/60's sci-fi B-movies! Hilariously, set in the distant future of 1980, this is more of the usual trashy stuff those who have seen many of these films will have come to expect. But, in fairness, this flick is as least a little strange and does have a memorably ridiculous plot-line. There isn't any real reason for the tiny people in this film. Once they have shrunk, other than the giant space suit, there is nothing to indicate their tininess and it never has any real relevance to the plot thereafter. It just seems to be an unusual plot development and not much more. But at least it is different. Also, the Solarites themselves make for amusingly daft looking aliens. One of which is held prisoner on the Phantom 'Planet'. Interestingly, he was played by Richard Kiel, who would go onto play the title character in the trash classic Eegah and then to worldwide fame as the character Jaws in a couple of James Bond movies.All-in-all, this is hardly good but it is strange enough to make it worth a watch if you have a liking for 50's/60's sci-fi nonsense.