People are voting emotionally.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Strategic targets on Earth are being destroyed by an unknown weapon. Government security head Henderson (Don Walters) suspects it's an "atomic ray" originating from the moon! This serial is heavily padded with rocket-suit effects footage first filmed for the earlier "King of the Rocket Men", to which some believe this was a pseudo-sequel. A repainted Juggernaut vehicle from the much-earlier "Undersea Kingdom" serial is also reused here as Retik's lunar tank. All spaceship footage was filmed new for the serial.As silly as this serial is, it has successfully been influential on popular culture. I mean, "Commando Cody" is still remembered many decades later. And some say it was an influence on later films like "The Rocketeer" (though that is not confirmed to my knowledge).

One of serial king, Fred Brannon's later efforts in which he was forced to make do with an extremely bottom-rung budget. Despite some wonderful explosions and other rescued-from-the-archives special effects work by the Lydeckers, nearly all of the cliff-hangers are of the hero-jumps- out-of-car-just-before-it-plunges-over-cliff variety. Production values are so minimal in fact, they are even insufficient to pad out the feature cut-down, "Retik, the Moon Menace", without endlessly repeating the same shots or the same sets. Perhaps, the feature film needs to be cut down even further, though as it is, the continuity is rather jerky. At least the non-action scenes with their comic strip dialogue exchanges are bustled through at a great pace... I must admit the heroine is mildly attractive, though the rest of the cast is pretty wet. Roy Barcroft's scenes look as if they were all filmed in a couple of days and then judiciously interspersed throughout the film. Understandably, he can do little with the title role of Retik.

George Wallace is fine as aerospace flier 'Commando Cody'. Albeit he's a little over-aged for the part, Wallace is better than Tris Coffin who portrayed the rocketman two years earlier in 'King of the Rocketmen'. Bill Bakewell (who looks and sounds almost exactly like Wallace) is adequately humorous as the laboratory sidekick, while beautiful Aline Towne with her sexy voice dresses up the proceedings. Clayton Moore (TV's 'The Lone Ranger') plays a bad guy.12-chapter 'serial' in which Cody flies to the moon to attempt to shutdown enemy forces pointing lasers at earth in order to destroy cities in preparation for an invasion soon to follow. Good escapist stuff, though rocketman Cody never appears naked (the contemporary meaning of the word "commando" is 'nude').

Moon ruler Retik assigned one of his people to go on Earth and cripple its defenses to a point when the Moon people could go down and invade it. The defense department gets a hold of the idea, and assigns Commando Cody, with flying rocket suit and all. Cody, along with his assistants, journey to the moon, are nearly killed and go back down upon Earth to stop the sabotage in progress in order to force Retik to come down and strike himself. The only Republic serial that did a good job trying to parody the 50's science craze, is at times ridiculous but still a lot of fun to watch. Sort-of sequel to King of the Rocketman and later inspired a kiddie TV show. Clayton Moore ( the Lone Ranger himself ) plays one of the Moon Men's hired guns. Just a little above average serial at best. I never saw the MST3K version, but they would have had a lot more fun doing Zombies of the Stratosphere or Flying Discman from Mars. Rating based on serials- 6 out of 10.