Popular reviews

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  Review by Graham Williamson ★★★★★ 6

  There's something unnerving about watching a film that appears to know its place in cinema history; it's as if some omnipotent movie god reached out to the producers and said "Right, we're going to do some shiny, optimistic sci-fi in the '50s and some paranoid existential sci-fi in the '70s; any way you could bridge that gap for us?" And that's exactly what this cult Czech space opera provides, from its lapel-grabbing flash-forward opening onwards. You know the movie is going to be one step ahead of its audience's perceptions of early '60s SF when it introduces a quaint old Forbidden Planet-style robot early on - then immediately has the crew comment on how it's an 80-year-old antique in their…

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  Review by Lou (rhymes with wow!) ★★★½

  This Czech(oslovak) science-fiction movie is loosely based on The Magellanic Cloud by Polish novelist Stanisław Lem (who also wrote Solaris.) Like the Soviet sci-fi movie I watched yesterday, this is very dialogue driven, which does make it a bit dry at times. I was very impressed with the space scenes, especially when you consider this was made in the early 60's.

  This was in many ways years ahead of its time.

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  Review by ScreeningNotes ★★★★ 1

  (Opening lines) "Earth is gone! Earth never existed!"

  Ikarie XB-1 (retitled Voyage to the End of the Universe in the US) is a Czech sci-fi film which is notable both for its place in cinematic history in general and for its relationship to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey specifically. The story follows an intergalactic expedition sent to investigate a planet near Alpha Centauri. As the inhabitants adjust to life in space however, the ship encounters a drifting spacecraft with a dead crew and a mysterious "dark star" emitting dangerous radiation.

  As Graham Williamson has noted, The 60's was a transitionary period for science fiction film, coming between the optimistic, adventurous sci-fi of the 50's and going to the cynical…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★½

  Hard not to read some of this as kitsch today (dance party scene, I'm looking at you) but seems to have had quite a budget, with lovely miniatures, big sets, and some atmospheric shadowy black and white scope photography. Occasionally reveals some possible influence on 2001 or INTERSTELLAR, with its dips into the banality of space colonization and elements of weird time-dilation, abandoned families, and mental breakdown. Despite the ending, the initially utopic appearance of single-minded, scientifically planned collectivism here is eventually revealed to be a spiritually stifling trap that can only lead to infighting and deceit given the intrinsic selfishness of humanity. Communism is just a red space-herring.

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  Review by Jonathan White ★★★½ 4

  Wait, this isn’t the Czech New Wave I know and love. Where’s the self-deprecation? Where’s the lascivious behavior? Where’s the copious imbibing? Where’s the dry as dust humor? … oh, wait, there was that modern space dance scene. And a robot that must have inspired The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’s Marvin. And a master control computer who I swear said ‘Danger Will Robinson’.

  I was expecting a bunch of lazy shirkers who figured out they could get 15 years of pay in 28 months due to time dilation. ‘Scientists’ performing carnal social experiments on each other, and beer drinking atomotons. They would introduce the best of humanity to a newly contacted alien race.

  I got none of that. So…

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  Review by comrade_yui ★★★★

  almost as if early antonioni made a sci-fi film -- easily one of the most beautiful i've seen, with ash-grey corridors, deep staging, bright space-lamps that are never enough to illuminate the characters' existential quandaries -- the idea of time happening at different paces for astronauts and earthlings is a notion that's explored in one of my favorites, gunbuster, and ikarie uses it to great effect; it's legitimate science fiction, with most of our time being spent on the weird introspective contemplation that would happen during these long voyages, the onset of irritation and depression at being cooped up for years with the same group of people, the madness than can afflict even the most balanced scientist. one can easily…

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  Review by Mateus Henrique ★★★★½

  PORTUGUESE VERSION: 🇧🇷
  
  
  
  

  "Atenção, Erik! Petr e eu vamos entrar na história... e não apenas na história humana!"

  
  Ikarie XB-1 nos apresenta a viagem de tripulantes de uma nave estelar que partem em direção ao sistema Alfa Centauri em busca de contatar outras formas de vida, no ano 2163. No caminho, enfrentarão problemas como a radiação, encontros inesperados e os limites de sua própria sanidade.

  Ikarie XB-1 é um marco da ficção científica por influenciar grande parte de obras posteriores do gênero. É notável as características utilizadas em 2001: Uma Odisséia no Espaço, como os corredores octagonais e os trajes espaciais, em Solaris, pela abordagem psicológica de seus personagens (embora aqui de forma mais rasa) e em Alien, pela sequência…

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  Review by Ethan Lyon ★★★½ 4

  1st Jindřich Polák

  To my Western eyes, this is best understood as a big-budget episode of Star Trek. Shot in lustrous black and white widescreen, Ikarie's plot shares that same interest in exploring the great unknown and visualising a completely realised version of the future, complete with dance trends and space food. There's two plot points that are almost exactly Star Trek premises; the exploration of the hundred year old spacecraft recalls both the opening of "The Tholian Web" and more obviously "Space Seed" in the reckoning with the past it forces the crew members to acknowledge, while the finale (which is seen at the beginning) recalls "The Naked Time", though in a more oblique manner.

  Ikarie, then, is an…

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  Review by Cecil Selwyn 🔮 ★★★★★ 1

  my entire understanding of the science-fiction genre has been shattered

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  Review by More_Badass ★★★★

  As I watched Ikarie XB-1, more and more movies kept coming to mind that owe a debt to this Czech odyssey of existential sci-fi and extrasolar dread. Star Trek’s tackling of cerebral space challenges from the bridge. 2001’s contemplative cosmic unease and HAL-robo assistance. Alien’s genuine crew bonding. The ghost ships of Event Horizon and Sunshine, Pandorum’s space delirium, Interstellar’s musings on time dilation: it’s all here, familiar due to time and legacy yet executed with a bleak classical seriousness that still resonates nearly six decades later.

  True to its roots as a Stanisław Lem adaptation, Ikarie XB-1 is on an entirely different tonal wavelength than Jindřich Polák’s zany time-travel romp Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea.…

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  Review by Christian Ryan ★★★★ 2

  Apparently, the hacked up, poorly dubbed AIP cut of this (retitled Voyage to the End of the Universe) replaces the original final shot with a Statue of Liberty “OH MY GOD IT’S EARTH” twist that predates Planet of the Apes by a good five years. While I’d agree that an ending like that would likely undermine the sophisticated tone established here, I’d be lying if I said it wouldn’t have bumped my rating up another half star. What can I say, I’m a sucker for a good campy twist.

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  Review by YOU MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE ★★★★★

  Woah, someone actually made a science fiction movie! Maybe someday there will be another one.