The Day the Sky Exploded (Italy)

This is regarded as Italy's first serious sci-fi picture. The DVD copy I have, though an official release, is pretty poor in picture quality, no better than a VHS version, and with jump cuts. This may affect my estimation of the film. I found it to be pretty boring. A rocket is launched into orbit in the first act, with one astronaut aboard. Not much else happens in the first 15 minutes, besides the astronaut saying goodbye to his wife.

I expected it to pick up after the slow first act but the pace remains the same - deadly slow. The rocket launch is deemed a failure, since it was meant to go further, to the moon, but is canceled following a malfunction. The astronaut returns to Earth, but the rocket booster continues on to an asteroid belt. Eventually, the impact has detrimental effects on Earth. There's footage of large scale animal movement, indicating the onset of some cataclysm, such as tidal waves. But, most of the story focuses on dull soap opera (the astronaut/his wife and another couple), a lot of discussion and footage of technicians working their radios or radar equipment.
There's finally stock footage of massive flooding and fires, as well as cartoon-like special FX of Earth being bombarded, as well as one guy going nuts as the disasters worsen, but it's too little too late. BoG's Score: 2 out of 10