H.G. Wells' The War Of The Worlds

Horror, Science Fiction, Action

Anthony Piana	The Writer
Jack Clay	Ogilvy
James Lathrop	The Artilleryman
Darlene Sellers	Mrs. Elphinstone
John Kaufmann	The Curate
Jamie Lynn Sease	Miss Elphinstone
Susan Goforth	The Writer's Wife
W. Bernard Bauman	Henderson

Director	Timothy Hines
Producer	Susan Goforth
Writer	H.G. Wells; Timothy Hines

H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds is a quirky if well-meaning, labor-of-love adaptation of Wells' seminal 1898 science fiction novel. A website for the film's production company, Pendragon Pictures, explains that this version of Wells's thinly disguised prediction of World War I actually began as a modern-day variation on the story. Terrorist attacks in America on September 11, 2001, however, convinced co-writer and director Timothy Hines to set the project instead in the late 19th century period Wells imagined.

By coincidence, Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise's contemporary take on War of the Worlds began production shortly after Hines's adjustment. While hardly a competitive threat to Spielberg's movie, Pendragon's War might have made an interesting complement to it. Unfortunately, Hines and company seriously blew their opportunity. While there is some money and impressive special-effects wizardry on the screen, this embarrassing, seemingly endless feature is doomed by a crazy effort to marry the look and texture of Silent Era epics to Computer Age manipulation. Not that War is a silent picture, mind you. But much of it is tinted in expressive rainbow hues that were common in films a century ago; the cast of unknowns' performances are mannered and exaggerated in a silly impression of pre-optical soundtrack acting; and primitive effects (e.g., printing a scene backwards for an ethereal feel) are unflattering. As if that's not bad enough, no one involved with this movie appears to know basic editing principles for compressing time and action. On the plus side, the extraterrestrial killers and their awesome machines of destruction are startling to behold. The image of Big Ben's clock tower blown apart over a flaming London is persuasive indeed. --Tom Keogh