Just as everyone is breathing a sigh of relief following Neutron’s defeat of the evil Dr. Caronte (Julio Aleman), the fiendish doctor rears his head yet again. His plot to take over the world is stalled when he gets mixed up with a spy (Guillermo Alvarez Bianchi) who works for a foreign government. He steals Caronte’s formula for the neutron bomb with the intention of using it for his own devious purposes. Once Caronte gets the formula back and disposes of the spy, he sets out to claim Nora (Rosita Arenas) the nightclub singer for his own, all the while unmasking his arch-nemesis, Neutron (Wolf Ruvinskis).
After two smashing entries in the Neutron series, along comes this over-plotted third entry to take the wind out of the franchise’s sails. The laborious subplot with Caronte and the superfluous foreign villain (who looks like Sydney Greenstreet in Casablanca and listens to Beethoven) pretty much stops the movie on a dime. What’s more is the fact that he quickly unmasks Caronte, discovers his identity, and then uses it as leverage against him. Forced with the prospect of having to do the spy’s bidding, Caronte then spends 2/3 of the movie wriggling out from under the bad guy’s thumb. So much for being “amazing”.
All this rigmarole with Caronte ultimately gets in the way of Neutron doing his thing. The film was already low on fight scenes to begin with, but the dense, dull, and misguided subplot only allows for him to have three brawls, and in only one of them does he wear his trademark mask. For Lucha Libre fans, this will come as a disappointment. Heck, even the zombies don’t get a lot to do in this one, so horror fans will undoubtedly feel let down too.
On the plus side, returning director Federico Curiel once again brings a strong sense of style to the proceedings. The laboratory scenes feel like something out of an old Universal movie, and there are segments that may remind you of a Republic serial. That’s not quite enough though to live up to the heights of Neutron, the Atomic Superman vs. the Death Robots, but at least the atmosphere is decent.
AKA: Neutron vs. Dr. Caronte.
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