But before all of that we have the floating head of Zardoz himself. Zardoz (Niall Buggy, with an obviously painted-on goatee) delivers a prologue to the film while floating against a black backdrop. The prologue is uninviting enough and cheesy enough to encourage dropping the disk back in the little rental envelope and returning it immediately.

(Niall Buggy, I am sorry to report, is still acting. Perhaps I am being unfair, since I’ve never seen any of his other work. But in this film at least he has all the charisma and acting skill of a high-school Thespian Society president; you know, the one who got voted in because he’s the attractive male lead, not because he has any skill. His evil laughter is about the worst in the industry.)

Niall Buggy: Actor.

Every tiny detail of the movie, from Sean Connery’s mustache to the macramé vests to the casual nudity, is so 1970s it’ll make your teeth itch. The movie isn’t just dated; it’s practically a time capsule all on its own. This is probably the second best reason to watch the movie — the first being able to say “I saw a movie with a giant flying stone head and Sean Connery in a designer loincloth.”

As far as the film’s “good” qualities are concerned, you’re pretty much going to have to limit yourself to the visuals here. Just like Havoc, the cinematographer is the most talented part of the crew. Yes, halls of mirrors, disembodied heads, and video projected on nude models feature heavily in the film. But when the movie isn’t exploring the outer limits of 1970s head-trip special effects it’s a beautiful film to watch. Our cinematographer (Geoffrey Unsworth, who worked on Superman, Superman II, and turned down work on Star Wars) does far more with his camera than point the lens at people who are talking. It’s high-budget camera work in otherwise B-movie fare; it earned Unsworth a BAFTA nomination.

And the first part of the movie is interesting as well. Part of the fun of science fiction and fantasy movies is connecting the dots, figuring out what’s going on. When the story is told well, details are revealed often enough to keep your attention but not so fast you feel like you’re drowning in details. Zardoz nails this for about the first hour or so, then descends into an oppressive mass of lecture, flashback, and literature-quoting. The screenwriter apparently realized halfway through that no one was going to get to see either the detail of his world-building or the depth of his thinking in the time frame alloted, and so turned to exposition.

“Can’t Wildwind at least wear a shirt to dinner?”

In some of the most painful scenes, even the cast members who have been doing a decent acting job turn in wooden, stilted performances. They clearly aren’t connecting with, or even understanding the purpose of, the quotations from Song of Solomon or Nietzsche. And all they completely fail to impress upon the audience how deep the screenwriter is — which is what the purpose is, of course. Nevertheless, it’s one of the very few films I’ve seen featuring attractive, topless women reciting philosophy and classic scientific writing; it’d be geek porn if those scenes weren’t so brief.

All of that pales next to a sudden and unexpected imposition of a romantic sub-plot that feels stuck-on with spit at the last minute. The direction of this scene is so laughably poor and so horribly written you’ll think it was done by George Lucas in the throes of a Benadryl overdose.

Sean Connery’s performance is nothing to get terribly excited about, but I imagine he’s doing the best he can with the material he’s given. John Alderton, who looks a bit like Paul McCartney after a trip to the Play-doh Barber Shop, does a pretty good job as the sardonic Eternal troublemaker Friend. Later on he does a passable imitation of Jimmy Stewart. Consuella (Charlotte Rampling) and May (Sara Kestelman) don’t do bad jobs either, although they’re clearly feeling the effects of the pointy-haired director. Everyone else, on the other hand, seems to have taken inspiration from Renaissance Festival performances; they have the same kind of self-conscious, theatrical performance that seems more at home on a community-theater stage production of Aristophanes than a science fiction movie.

But the movie is definitely a novelty. If you can stand the exposition, it’ll give you something else to talk about, at least with other people who appreciate bad or strange movies. And if you’re one of those people who likes to have their own Mystery Science Theater nights, this is one movie they should have done. Probably could have, if it weren’t for all the nudity. In that case, rent it and more power to you. With even a modicum amount of riffing skill it’s likely to be the highlight of the evening.

Despite appearances, Zardoz has nary a wakka-chu-wakka.