Just keep in mind that while you're doing whatever you're doing, big-headed creatures from space are watching you and making plans. Well, at least they are in this better-than-average science fiction movie. The big-headed creatures are Metalunans, one of whom has set out to seek help from Earth. Metaluna is under attack, and help is needed from Earth -- help that Exeter, in human disguise or otherwise, has been sent to gather. The film is not just about the special effects or the plot line; this is a polemic rather than a tale, warning against the expansion of atomic energy concerns and the misuse of resources. By way of telling about the Metalunan disaster, it warns against the hubris of the age and the consequences of this hubris. The Metalunans descend into tragedy on the scale of grand opera, warning the human cast to walk the narrow way -- never forgetting the Metalunans in the meantime. Disaster, whether atomic, military, or ecological, is only a mistake or two away. This Island Earth, sometimes unfairly picked on, is well worth seeing, especially if a video triple bill with Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still can be arranged.