Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

jmillerdp Wow, that just plain wasn't good! Interesting concept, poor execution. The movie starts out with the interesting idea of sending a group of astronauts to Mars. But, it follows that idea with odd characters spending the movie fighting with each other, lower-grade Visual Effects, and George Pal's awkwardly putting The Bible into the mix.Pal always added discussion of The Bible into his movies. Here, he does again, but it comes across as awkward and oddly used. While Pal was religious, it is interesting that he has a character turn into a religious fanatic.The movie is more about the characters clashing than about space exploration. The Visual Effects are noticeably lower grade than in Pal's previous Sci-Fi films like "War of the Worlds." It is said that Pal had his lowest budget on this, and had a Visual Effects Supervisor who was distracted by his simultaneously working on "The Ten Commandments."Overall, a disappointing conclusion to George Pal's time at Paramount. See his "Destination Moon" for a definitely better space adventure from Pal.**** (4 Out of 10 Stars)

ferbs54 "Conquest of Space" is a wholly likable but decidedly second-tier sci-fi film from 1955 that should just manage to please fans of the genre. In it, Man's first flight to the Moon is scrapped in favor of an even grander project: a trip to Mars and back! Thus, blasting off from an orbiting space wheel 1,000 miles out, Earth's first space cruiser departs with its complement of five: General Sam Merritt (Walter Brooke), a ramrod martinet who, suffering from space fatigue, will question mankind's "blasphemy" in attempting to invade God's celestial domain; his son Barney (Eric Fleming, who, three years later, would enjoy some conquests of his own, in "Queen of Outer Space"); Sgt. Siegle (Phil Foster), the obligatory wisecracking palooka from NYC; Imoto (Benson Fong), a Japanese botany expert; and Fodor (Ross Martin), the ship's doctor. The film looks fine (for 1955, that is), with decent enough FX and superb painted backdrops courtesy of legendary "Astounding Science-Fiction" cover artist Chesley Bonestell; indeed, Bonestell had rendered the illustrations for science writer Willy Ley's 1949 textbook "The Conquest of Space," which very loosely inspired this film. The FX just mentioned were brought in by producer George Pal and director Byron Haskin, whose work, together and separately, on such sci-fi classics as "Destination Moon," "The War of the Worlds," "The Time Machine" and "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" certainly eclipses that seen here. Still, "Conquest of Space," despite its at-times silly humor and unusual Christian subtext, gets the job done. The picture looks just good enough, the characters are sympathetic and well drawn, the acting is more than passable and the script, for the most part, is fairly intelligent. Like I said, not a top-rung effort, but surely worthy of any sci-fi fan's attention. The picture may not itself be a total conquest, especially when compared to the following year's superb "Forbidden Planet," but you won't be bored. And, oh...the film's best line: "You forgot your toothbrush."

MartinHafer During the 1950s, Hollywood made a ton of films about voyages to the Moon or Mars. Most of these films look very quaint and old fashioned when seen today, but you must allow for the fact that they simply couldn't produce the grand special effects we take for granted in more modern films. Plus, while the way the trips occur seem pretty strange compared to the actual moon landings, you must also allow that back in the 1950s it was still all speculation--they simply didn't know better about many of the important aspects of such a journey.However, despite some very old fashioned ideas about such a voyage, CONQUEST OF SPACE is a very good film for its day. Much of this is because unlike most of the other films of the genre, this one does not use stock clips of old V-2 launches and features all original rocket and space shots. Sure, the models in this production are a bit on the cheesy side, but you can tell they at least tried to get it right. In particular, what I founds interesting is that they used a space shuttle-like craft to go to Mars--not a more traditional rocket.The film was also interesting because instead of the traditional bug-eyed monsters or malevolent external forces like some films employed, the big nemesis of this film is space fatigue and mental illness caused by this exhaustion. The only negative about this was later in the film when the general obviously was insane due to these effects and yet his best friend so doggedly refused to admit it--even when the guy did everything but put on a hat and declare that he was Napoleon!! The only other thing that bothered me about the film is that like some of these types of films, there was a crazy notion that the film needed a comic relief crew member (Siegel). While not an uncommon plot device, you'd sure think that the Earth with its billions of people would have someone better and smarter than him!! Overall, an excellent film for people like me who like this genre, though I can pretty safely assume that many people today would not be particularly interested in the film. It's a shame, as it's an interesting glimpse into the 1950s.

pylgrym Study this old seminal classic, the new Space Movie, "Sunshine" by Danny Boyle, Anderson's "Event Horizon" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" together and you'll see that George Pal was a Christian idealist, Anderson a Christian pessimist, and Boyle - a Christian optimist! Yes, old Stanley had a sardonic sense of humor. But Stanley was no Christian in any philosophical sense...Chech the similarities: "2001" owes much to "CoS"; If "CoS" had a meteor storm, "2001" had one lonely rock drifting by . . . if "CoS" had a funeral, "2001" had Frank Poole drifting away.... If "CoS" had banal and corny dialog, well... you get the idea. The themes and genre expectations of Space movies are needfully narrow; that's one reason we spacenuts love them so. ANY excuse to leave old Earth's atmosphere! Of course Stanley studied all the movies that had gone before and had the money to exercise his peculiar misanthropic oneupmanship on a grand scale. I wonder if Danny Boyle saw "CoS"? Think of the crazed father figure of CoS as the crazed HAL in '01'! or the crazed CPT of the Icarus or the Even...another thing is, in Cinemascope, "CoS" still looks as good and plays as well as Super Panavision 70's "2001"... both films will undoubtedly look dated, yes and and archaic in another 40 years, but who's to say which vision - Pal's or Kubrick's - will still be selling the most DVD 'tickets'? Something to take a deep breath, put on your space helmet and ponder - even unto the end of the world.... and the extinction of mankind...??!