Tag Archives: H.G. Wells

First Men in the Moon Review

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It’s time for a sci-fi title. Usually I’d say a “sci-fi thriller” but this really isn’t that kind of story. It’s actually a bit more of a slow burn until we start approaching the end. There’s a large chunk in the beginning where you’re just wondering when they’re actually going to get to space. It also makes the dicey decision of spoiling one of the survivors by making most of the film a flashback. I never liked that narrative decision in the past and I can tell you that this has not changed over the years.

Well, the film starts off with a bunch of astronauts making it to the Moon and they’re hyped because this is the first time that humanity has made it so far. Or…that’s what they thought! A flag is found there and so they track down one of the survivors from the original trip. He casually explains that they have already been to the Moon and they even met some aliens. The United Nations wants answers and this guy is happy to provide them. People did not believe him when he first told the world, but now they will listen!

We then begin his flashback and for a little while there we just get some comedic shenanigans. Arnold and Kate meet up with a crazy scientist named Joseph. Turns out that the guy has a way to negate gravity and so the three of them head up into the Moon. The Moon has already been conquered by a race of alien beings though. They are not particularly strong or anything like that but they do have the advantage in sheer numbers. Arnold and Kate figure they need to get out of there but Joseph thinks that they can be reasoned with. This will prevent some problems.

I’m absolutely against Joseph here. There is just no evidence to really show that these aliens will be good and it feels like the height of naivety to be trying to make peace when the stakes are this high. At least get home first but Joseph goes into full trust mode right away. The aliens can talk and have intelligence so it’s not like this is definitely a doomed mission but looking out for his friends first would have been the right move. So I definitely didn’t like Joseph by the end of this.

As for Arnold, I thought he was a solid main character. He prioritized saving Kate right away and fought off a bunch of the aliens. He even has a Superman type moment where a bunch of them jump on him and he just shakes them off. While it was a bad look for the aliens, it was definitely a good look for him. Meanwhile Kate did her best not to panic too much or anything like that. She did feel more on the powerless side though but still beats some heroines from her time. She could have used some more scenes to develop some personality though.

The aliens are one of the weaker parts of the film though. They just don’t feel very imposing and the only one who really got any character was the leader. The rest of them may not have been mindless exactly but they were close to that point. Acting like some kind of hivemind just running to the ship and getting defeated rather quickly. The ending of the film goes for a bit of a cop out approach but since you weren’t too invested in the aliens, you’re not exactly broken up about it.

Okay this is sounding rather negative so I do want to emphasize that this was a good film. It’s just a true slow burn where you have to be in it for the plot. Also you will need to see if you prefer the space scenes or the ones back on Earth. I’d say they are fairly balanced. The writing is solid and the characters are good except for the crazy scientist. It just all ends in a rather anti climactic way. It’s basically someone telling a story the whole time and there is no sense of danger as a result since you know that he survived. If the film ended by showing him to be a shapeshifter or something then that would be different.

The biggest other way to solve this would be for the story part to not be a factor. Just have the astronauts head to the Moon in the present. Have them still find a flag showing that someone else had been there but we never get those answers. It would help the film just have more of a “Cosmic Horror” vibe without having to spoil the ending or show that everyone already survived. That would have been the best way to pull this off.

The effects definitely get a good shoutout though. The film is fairly old but they did a good job of showing the Moon and the various tech involved. It’s not like you will mistake this for a 2020 film or anything like that but it’s clear that a lot of effort went into this one. Nowadays they’d probably just settle with throwing CG everywhere. I would have liked some solid music tracks to go along with the scenes though. That’s another way to amp up the tension.

Overall, This is a film I would recommend to sci-fi fans but perhaps not ahead of most of its rivals. This one could have used some more fight scenes. The brief Power Rangers type hand to hand of throwing the aliens around was fun after all. So focusing more on that would be a good thing if you ask me. That said, I believe Wells was more about writing dramatic, suspense type stories like this that introduced a lot of lore and could be weird but never turned into full on action stories. I guess the film would have to deviate quite a bit if it wanted to achieve that.

Overall 6/10

Island of Lost Souls Review

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This review is of the edited version as I believe all airings don’t have the original extreme animal violence scene anymore. Still terrible though and it would be hard to make the review any harsher because it’s so bad.

Remember that feeling of falling off of your bike and scraping your knee, only to fall again on that same knee? That’s basically what it’s like to watch this film. It’s one of those films that is so horrific, so terrible, so awful that you won’t be able to find anything good to say about this film. The fact that Britain apparently gave it an X certificate before cutting out some of the incredibly terrible animal violence is quite telling. Even the author of the book didn’t approve of the film. It’s really just filled with terrible animal violence and ultimately there is no point to the story. Even the main poster is terrible. This film really couldn’t do anything right. At least films like this make other bad titles look somewhat competent.

Parker is on a ship heading back home, but he notices that the Captain is being cruel to his animal slaves. He punches the guy, but is thrown overboard. Parker is forced to go to a haunted island where more animals are being cruelly tortured and is held against his will for a while. Parker doesn’t mind for the most part and even gives a pass to the evil doctor. After cheating on his fiancee, Parker starts to realize that this place may be having a bad effect on him so when his friends come to rescue them, he doesn’t bother to warn them of the dangers. On the contrary, he sends an old man off to fight the island’s dozens and dozens of inhabitants on his own. Once Parker is sure that the old man is dead, he heads off with the main heroine and one of the villains to try and escape, but it will likely take one more sacrifice. He’s planned for that though…

This film’s another train wreck in case you couldn’t guess by now. The only decent character here is the Captain and even he isn’t all that smart. Going outside on your own in the middle of the night in enemy territory is just foolish and drinking/eating a lot in an unfamiliar place is not a strategically wise move either. He certainly should have taken a bigger crew with him for such an expedition. He is better than the other characters by default though. Parker wasn’t a likable character for many reasons, but one of the main ones is that he is very quick to cheat on his girl friend. After that, he admits that he didn’t really care much about the animals being tortured and was content to leave the island and not do anything about it. He’s what you would call a coward. He’s worried about what might happen if he stands up for the creatures so he chooses to feign ignorance. While the animals are being experimented on, he goes back to his cabin to read a book. I was waiting for him to get knocked off, but that would only happen if this was a modern horror film. Since it’s retro, everyone else gets to die except for him and the main heroine.

Most films lose some stars and points for having mild animal violence. You can imagine how this film became a 0 instantly with the high degree that is featured here. This film is right up there with Sucker Punch as one of the worst films of all time. As bad as Awake was, this is in a whole different level. It’s not that long at least, but still tries to be as unpleasant as humanly possible. Dr. Moreau has an extremely dark ending to try and compensate for how violent and dark they made him, but it certainly doesn’t win the film back any points. There is even a trope for this kind of thing where a villain will commit some kind of atrocity and then that same atrocity happens to them by the end as a form of karmic justice. In actuality, this vicious cycle just means that the film will have the same dark moment twice and further sink it into the ground.

On the surface, you might find it appealing to see a villain like this meet an incredibly brutal end, but at that point, it is just too much. Simply have the villain die in an explosion or something, no need for him to get tortured just to prove a point. Films like this are just extremely toxic and just plain bad for you. Watching rubbish like this for a while will just give you a sour disposition and you’re better off watching something with actual good themes and light hearted moments. This film opts to be incredibly grim-dark the entire time instead.

Overall, there’s not much more to say about this film. It simply doesn’t have any class and you’ll be doing yourself a favor by skipping out on it. Animal violence shouldn’t be tolerated in any shape or form and the film better not have been using any actual animals for this. The whole thing is just unethical and if H.G. Wells typically writes books of such low quality, then I can safely say that he is extremely overrated. Most big name authors are though so I can’t say I’m very surprised. The summary tipped me off from the start that this was going to be a terrible film. Luckily, I think this is the last 0 star film at the moment, but we still do have some really negative ones coming up so prepare yourself. For every gem, there are 5 old banana’s in the trash can just waiting to be picked up. This was one of those, but at least, now I have a film I can easily mention when someone asks what some of the worst films of all time are.

Overall 0/10

The Invisible Man Review

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the-invisible-man-1933
The 30s aren’t particularly known for their immense selection of incredible films, but they still did churn out some pretty big titles. The Invisible Man is certainly one of them and almost everyone has heard of this figure. He was a character who could scare just about anyone back in the day. Considering that it is nearly a century old at this point, The Invisible Man presents us with a pretty interesting film that is fun to watch. I gotta say that this is definitely my kind of Horror Film! (It can give some of the Godzilla films a run for their money.)

The story revolves around a scientist whose experiment goes wrong and he turns invisible. No..that’s a little misleading. His experiment didn’t turn out as he had pictured, but he was interested in basically turning invisible so it was essentially a success. The big twist is that the chemicals also warp the user’s mind so he starts to get more and more sinister until the Invisible Man basically becomes a mass murderer with visions of world domination. The local authorities have to stop him..but how can you stop someone who is invisible? (And has super strength/speed as well…) The ultimate battle of good vs evil is about to begin!

The film is only about 70 minutes so things have to move at a fairly brisk pace. The film never moves too fast, but it goes quickly enough so that many things can happen. The film starts out pretty suspenseful and then it turns into more of an action by the end. There are some scenes that will definitely stretch your limit for disbelief, but this film is pretty old so it could be a generation gap. These moments will definitely be addressed in a moment.

The Invisible Man is the main villain of the title and it’s hard to tell if he was always evil or if the side effects of the potion really threw him over the deep end. Either way, it’s not a positive for the Invisible Man if you think of him as a hero. Luckily, I just think of him as a villain and he’s not bad in that respect. You can’t really root for him since his goals just seem to come out of nowhere, but what villain doesn’t want to become rich and rule the world? We can only see the Invisible Man when he has clothes on, but the serum definitely seemed to make him a lot stronger. He mentioned how it has opened his mind so it may go back to the theory that we only use about 20% of our mind and using more of it would give us super abilities. At least it’s sort of scientific depending on how you look at it. He can choke a man with ease and survive frigid temperatures while naked. He’s also a fairly quick runner and he can be in 10 places at once. (Not literally of course) He makes for a very powerful villain and one that realistically cannot be defeated…which makes the ending a little dicey.

The Chief Detective was definitely my favorite character in the film. He came up with a lot of plans to stop the Invisible Man and nothing fazed him. This was the kind of guy that you just didn’t want to mess with and I actually liked some of his strategies. The net may have been a little primitive, but he didn’t have the tech that we currently possess. He made do with what he had and it would be tough to do a whole lot more. I won’t be forgetting the detective!

Arthur Kemp doesn’t look very good at all since he’s basically a hostage for a good portion of the film. He is too scared of the Invisible Man to launch any counter offensives and the most resistance that he could commit was to call the Police. He made the right call, but he should have either stayed locked up in the room or ran outside to meet the police. The Invisible Man does have some basic super strength and speed, but I don’t think it’s by a large gap. Arthur could still run for a while and he wouldn’t go down without a fight. Even once Arthur is in the car. He just starts begging for mercy right from the get go instead of trying to fight the Invisible Man. If you’re going to die, you may as well fight back right? Just go for the gold at that point.

Most of the fighters don’t do very well against the Invisible Man and that can be a little embarrassing for them. They outnumbered him at least 50-1 at one point and he just scared them into submission. Their best chance was during the first showdown where they were face to face with him, but the crowds ran away when the Invisible Man took off his bandages around his head. They should have pounced right then and there, but the shock defeated them. After that, I don’t think that they really could have defeated him.

Being invisible is just too great of a power. There are millions of places to hide and you could also just reduce the town’s population one by one. It’s impossible to protect everyone and the Invisible Man is already fairly smart. He may have gotten careless at the end, but even then he should have been able to escape. Instead, he decides to play the final Mario 64 level with the Policemen taking the role of Bowser. This proved to be a fatal mistake and you have to wonder what he was thinking.

It’s also a little hard to sympathize with the Invisible Man at the beginning of the film. I did for a few minutes when everyone was scared of him for no good reason. Sure, he was bundled up, but it was freezing out there. The sympathy was lost when he began to yell at the shop owners the whole time. He could have easily finished his experiments if he had been more polite and less direct about everything. Because of that, the Invisible Man lost his chance.

We had a few other characters like the main heroine and her father, but they don’t really contribute to the plot. They are there to provide us with a little context and some backstory for the Invisible Man, but that’s about it. I do have to say that the first Policeman’s portrayal was pretty great though. At first, he doesn’t really care much about the Invisible Man’s situation. (Before they knew he was invisible) However, you can see him growing more and more confident as he walks into the room and the Invisible Man continues to hurl threats. The Policeman doesn’t back down until the Invisible Man starts to become invisible with his iconic laugh. I’ll admit that his appearance isn’t very flattering at that point, but the beginning is really what counts.

There isn’t really a soundtrack to be found here since the film is so old. I will admit that the film’s age does show when it comes to the audio. It can be very hard to hear what some of the characters are saying because their voices are just too screechy. This is especially the case for one of the owners, but it’s more intentional on her part. She’s a pretty exaggerated character, but a pretty likable one nonetheless. I felt bad for her and her husband since they were just trying to run a respectable shop. The audio was a little dicey, but it’s pretty unavoidable and it’s not the kind of thing that will really take points away.

Overall, The Invisible Man is a pretty fun film. The writing is pretty strong as you would expect and the characters are pretty interesting. I think that the Police really should have been out of their league here, but I’ll accept the plot hax since the hero has to win somehow. The towns people were way too afraid of the Invisible Man though and they shouldn’t have been. He’s still just one man and they can definitely take him if they all just charge. It was hard to take them seriously during those moments, but they pulled it together by the end. The town was pretty cool and it’s the kind of place that you definitely wouldn’t have minded living in back during the 30’s. I definitely recommend this film to horror films and it may not be a thrill a minute, but it’s a very good film. It will keep you interested from start to finish. You’ll never forget The Invisible Man’s maniacal laugh afterwards!

Overall 7/10