Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

bensonmum2 Five seemingly random individuals find themselves mysteriously on board an alien craft. The alien gives each person three capsules. Each capsule is capable of wiping out vast sections of the Earth's population, but will not harm anything else. The five are sent back to their homes with their powerful weapons and told that they have 27 days in which to either use their devices to destroy humanity or find a way to live in peace. If they should chose to wipe-out the Earth's population, the aliens will take over the world. If not, the aliens will move on and look for another home. Each of the five is left with a horrible dilemma – how to handle this kind of power?I was going to get into detail on a whole political thing about some of the deeper aspects of The 27th Day, but I've since thought better of it. I usually write about the entertainment value of a film and what I liked and didn't like. I tend to leave the deep thinking for people who are much smarter than me. All I say on the subject is I would hate to see anyone allotted this kind of power given the current state of affairs in the world where words are considered a form of violence. I'd hate to see what someone would do with these capsules just because they felt slighted, etc. The ending of the films is especially troubling. So the people in the film discover how to use their devices to kill only those they consider evil because they do not support freedom? How do you decide who is in favor of freedom and what is your definition of evil? Were all those communists you wiped out really evil? Or were some of them living under a regime they did not agree with? Just a silly, illogical, nonsensical way to end the film. On to other things. So, was The 27th Day an entertaining film? Reading through some of the comments on IMDb, I know it has its fans, but I'm not really one of them. The film is well made, it has a reasonably interesting premise, and it features rock solid acting. But, unfortunately, it is all pretty much a bore. I found most of the movie as dry as dust. I had to fight with myself to stay awake. The relatively short 75 minute runtime just seemed to drag on and on forever. People talking and talking and talking with nothing much happening. Not what I call entertainment. And then there's that ending I've already discussed. What a mess. My one sentence summary: The 27th Day is a well-made film that suffers from a deathly dull script and an ending I find especially troubling. An unfortunate 4/10 from me.

Richie-67-485852 See this movie my Sci-Fi friends and enjoy the genre we have come to love. The movie is unique as it has a story never before been told and when one hears or views it for the first time, it has a capture the audience feel to it. In movie parlance this is called suspense. It was way ahead of its time for the concepts it introduced. The core concept was good versus evil and the choices we make concerning both. It is interesting to note that five people have to make decisions on their own and each one has their own way of proceeding making the viewer wonder what they would do and more importantly why they would do it. If this were made today, it would definitely resonate with the movie going public with one exception. The premise once revealed loses its surprise appeal unless new twists are added. There is room to broaden the concept. However, it does offer some thought provoking comments and dialog that allows for one to use their imagination to only wonder what happens after the words THE END show up on the screen. It is far from the end. That's why I highly recommend this to first time viewers especially so they can take maximum enjoyment of this first showing. Have a tasty drink handy, popcorn wouldn't hurt and a nice little personal snack as you follow this gem of its time well delivered for our enjoyment

CRH Great film! An excellent example of good SF that doesn't focus on special effects and a very engaging story that keeps you glued to the end, not only is it good SF, it's good film making. Even though it's 50 years old I found it to be a new take on the tired alien abduction/invasion "We Are Not Alone" storyline. Even with the 100 million dollar budgets of today's SF films they can't make a story as compelling as this one.I don't recall having seen this before TCM ran it on New Year's day 2007 (and I suspect most of the other voters saw it then as well) but it should take its place next to comparable films such as On the Beach, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, When Worlds Collide, The Magnetic Monster (another lost gem) and Day the Earth Stood Still.

vandino1 Here's a film that means well but is so shoddy budget-wise, and so tortuously contrived story-wise, that it nearly collapses into the 'Worst Movies Ever' category by the end. It's not THAT bad, but it's a far cry from being an underrated or undiscovered "gem" that many of the reviewers in this forum would like to claim of it.This is basically a mashing of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and "Red Planet Mars." The basic gimmick is a make-up compact-like device that contains lipstick-sized human-killing-only "bombs." The aliens hand it over to human-kind figuring it'll speed up our race to destroy ourselves (since the aliens can't do it themselves and they want our planet for their own survival). But instead of handing the devices off to the leaders of five different powerful countries, they hand it off to five various individuals---then announce it to the world. And they don't explain to anyone how to open these devices... and they don't say what's inside the devices and whether it's good or bad. It's all very vague and unnecessarily confusing when these aliens have a 27 day deadline to get the job done. It's also known as bad writing. And the worst example of the forced and, dare I say stupid, writing follows halfway through. That would be when the Soviets get their device opened first and immediately threaten total destruction of North America. That would be workable... except that the U.S. contingent (led by Gene Barry) open one of their alien devices soon after. Stalemate, right? Mutually assured destruction, right? Nope. For some reason the U.S. says nothing. In fact, all demands of the Soviets are met (pulling out of Europe, the Mediterranean, etc.) and, even faced with a 48 hour deadline that North America will be destroyed, the U.S. still REFUSES TO REVEAL THEY'VE GOT THE WEAPON, TOO! Huh? After this kind of egregiously inept story-telling the film has no where to go intelligently. It simply slaps on more idiocies involving messages decipherable by only one man (the German Scientist) who proceeds on a hunch based on a vague clue ("The alien said it had the power of life AND death." How meaningful) that leads to a laughable finale involving a Soviet leader crawling on the ground for the open compact evidently more concerned with meeting that deadline to destroy North America than he is with the brain-splitting sound wave that is killing him. But he's an "enemy of freedom" and is wiped out like his fellow freedom enemies across the globe, because the German scientist in the U.S. has figured out how to use the device not to kill all humankind... but only the bad people. Somehow the device has some supernatural ability to determine, like Santa Claus, who's been naughty or nice. No matter that a miscalculation on the Scientist's part might have wiped out millions of "innocents" even accepting the preposterous idea that he would have discovered and accepted the device's "enemy only" capabilities. In the end, it all becomes a reversal of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" wherein instead of the aliens threatening the Earth with destruction if we don't mend our ways, we show the aliens that we've mended our ways and are now welcomed and respected by the alien collective out there in the universe. Bravo, earthlings. Applause. But let's not forget that at the time of this film (1957) the U.S. and Soviet Union already had the SAME SITUATION as presented in the film, involving nuclear weapons. Therefore the crucial element in the plot is totally repetitious. Both the U.S. and the Soviets already had weapons capable of blowing up the entire world. We moved from A-Bomb to H-Bomb in a game of one-oneupmanship that only led to détente. What difference would a more powerful weapon make? Even if the Soviets threatened the U.S. with the alien weapon the U.S. could counter with good ol' fashioned nukes to destroy the Soviets. So, what would be the point? And lastly, it's ridiculously forced storytelling to have the human race be saved or destroyed by the actions of one man (the German scientist) and then have the aliens congratulate mankind for waking up and joining the "friends of freedom" across the universe. Mankind DIDN'T wake up... one lone scientist just figured out the way to use the device to kill bad people. And Gene Barry didn't even help--because he played a people-distrusting cynic! It's a weird (or just plain bad) film indeed that lets its top-lined star play such a non-heroic, virtually useless character (try to recall ANYTHING that Barry does in this film that's productive). Sadly, it seems there are viewers out there who find this heavy-handed Armageddon nonsense to be a deep and thought-provoking sci-fi take on Cold War hysteria. It's hysterical alright. One last note: the film features the famous voice of Paul Frees as a news announcer and actually has him on camera in one scene. It's surprisingly rare when Frees is on camera so this is one opportunity to see the face behind so much fabulous voice-over work. I assume his character wasn't an "enemy of freedom" and made the cut when that scientist fired off the weapon.