Sure Star Wars (a movie I have seen at least fifty times) beats all the others in special effects, but this film has every thing else!
It has horror(non-graphical), romance, robots, witty repartee, intelligence, (surprisingly good) special effects, and drama.
I saw this film a couple of years ago in a revival with a newly struck print, and I was amazed at how well it held up today. I thought the old 40's style electronics would look hokey, but they somehow looked futuristic and moderne.
Ann Francis in here (mostly) short skirts and bare feet with a girlish innocence that is hard to beat still gets a rise out of me.
The Krell monster appearing in the ray beams still scares the bejebees out of me.
Of course we all know that the "Great Bird of the Galaxy" probably modeled much of "Star Trek" from this movie.
No one has yet to beat Robby, the Robot, in terms of personality
(sorry, R2D2 and C3PO).
This movie, overall, is the standard that all other Science Fiction films will have to measure up to!
Honorable mention for the haunting electronic score which kept us all on pins and needles.

From the first time I saw the box cover of the movie and the stretched out photography I thought this guy, this friend of the 'Scwarz' must be like 6 foot or 6ft 2in.
Not 5 feet tall. Not that, it's his fault.
At any rating, I turned on the movie one cool night in Tucson, out on the second story-deck with a good cigar and let it roll. At that time my wife was having an affair and things were going down hill for me, so I needed a good diversion. But, as bad as the movie was...I totally enjoyed it, with a bottle of Merlot too, I might admit.
Truly, I have watched this movie many times. It always makes me feel good!! It's not that it 'tries too hard' to be cool or that 'It's so close' to hitting the mark for an action film....It's frantic. And then truly clueless. Then frantic again. It's the best of the best when it comes to a slow speed chase scene. Wow!! I never felt safer in my life. Warm and happy too. I was thankful that they conserved on the gasoline during the chase, due to less production in the summer months...anywho
The direction was 'uninspired' the action and fight sequences needed to be choreographed, or re-choreographed and tightened up, the sound was off the delivery didn't hit you, it just kept on going, the other way. The 'locals' of that village that they were in, the town rather, were 'Off cue' they also did not seem to follow what was happening very well, the would look and even 'stare' into the camera lens. Like a deer in the head lights kind of thing only some of them with a smile, a smiling deer.
I feel bad because 'Columbu' I just bet has a good heart and a caring spirit for people in America as well as for his own countrymen.
However "Baretta's Island" is very lethargic and unbelievable. Even still I like it a lot. My now x-wife hates it, but I love it!
The funny thing is, I am pretty discriminating when it comes to movies I like or even 'love'. All in all, I like Franco. So there it is.
As a movie adding addendum to this if you like killing a few hours with truly fun to watch, straight to video-B movies or 'bad' movies for your little library collection then, if you can find it, check out 'The Big Sweat' (1991) with Robert Z' Dar..you know the big guy from 'TANGO & CASH'. 'The Big Sweat', a bomb of a cop story with no real plot discovery and acting that is so lame, it might as well be 'on crutches' and at the end of 'The Big Sweat' I think they ran out of money, because they had a picture of the cast and just set it on fire and let it burn during the credits. -Good fun.
But all in all, not as good as Baretta's Island', I gave it a '1' and an overall rating of 'awful' for awful-good B' movie. I'm waiting for the sequel, maybe like 'Baretta's revenge on Montazuma' (Franco takes a Mexican vacation and gets sick on the water then, declares war on the water co.) or 'Baretta's powder war' where as he would stake out a large drug lord in his country and chemically gene-splice and create a hybrid super bug (insect) that would be bred and dropped into the cocaine fields and eat the coke and upon passing it through the bug, it forms a chemical reaction that turns the coke to pure powdered sugar. Then another sequel he would have to get the young people rescued from excessive sugar addiction and so on. He could get a major tooth paste company to endorse and partially fund the project with careful product placement in the feature. Right?(*)