20 Million Miles to Earth

The moment the film begins it draws the viewer into its story about a US mission to Venus that brings back a specimen of a creature that grows at an incredibly rapid rate in Earth's atmosphere. The creature is like nothing else ever before on screen with its lizard-like human head and human torso, and dinosaur like legs and tail. The story naturally concentrates on capturing this creature before it destroys Italy. Like other monster films where the monsters are the sympathetic ones and the real monsters are the people, 20 Million Miles to Earth depicts a creature that is inquiring, basically harmless unless provoked, and heroic despite its eventual fate. Ray Harryhausen did a terrific job with his stop-motion animation, especially when we see the beast battle an elephant in the streets of Rome. The acting is decent, not as bad as some critics would argue. The film is pure entertainment and yet another commentary on mankind and the whole concept of the stranger within our society.