Following along the lines of Planet of the Apes, this retelling of H.G. Wells� classic will disappoint fans of the 50�s George Pal movie, this is a story that is in a separate reality to that world, made obvious with the mentioning of the novel and movie by a hologram-museum guide (you�ll see what I mean when you watch the movie). In some ways it works, and is quite daring, but mostly it falters.
Guy Pearce plays the Time Traveller rather like Lee Evans played that American dude in There�s Something About Mary, you don�t know whether to take him seriously or not with the crap accent and nerdy clumsiness, and this does not bode well for the rest of the movie. Then Mark Addy appears as another English guy trying to play an American, badly (nearly all his roles to date have been in comedies, I thought this was going to turn into one), if it wasn�t for the superb Victorian production design which really sets itself in authenticity, I�d be getting very worried.
Plodding along with the story, our hero loses his one true love to a robber, trying to amend the past with a Time Machine he builds (cue, �four years later� subtitle), he soon finds out that he cannot save her. Puzzled by this, he sets out to answer this question by moving into the future, a lovely set-piece of effects and history take us to our not-so distant future, where museums have A.I museum hologram guides and the moon is the latest holiday destination, then we jump ahead again slightly and find out that heavy population and futile experiments to colonize the moon have made its orbit collapse, break up and head to Earth. Our hero bumps his noggin, knocks the controls forward and moves forward another 60,000 years or so before he regains consciousness.
Here is where the familiar stuff kicks in, world divided into two species � Eloi (good guys) and Morlocks (bad guys who eat good guys), the action picks up and the story really starts to get interesting. Pearce does well as the underdog hero, and actually �grows a pair� and kicks Morlock ass! Samantha Mumba is particularly impressive in her debut role and clearly looks comfortable. Jeremy Irons has an unexpectedly short role, but does well to get the viewers interest as the leader of the Morlocks. Aside from the up and down acting, effects and set pieces are well done throughout, with the first Morlock scene standing out as real edge of the seat stuff! All in all, not a bad little effort, but the last half of the movie seems rushed and wasted, while paradoxically the first half finds it hard to pick up pace. |
