If you are a fan of general romance and never read this book, you will probably enjoy this. If you are a fan of the book, stick with the George Pal version. Although it was a bit different from the book, it is still the closest and still rules by far.
Why is it that movie makers always think that they can make a story better than the original loved material? There were so many great visuals that could have made this version even better than the original 1960 version, but the script was just crap. The whole idea of the book was totally lost. The funniest part is, this movie was exactly what the book warned of. It is so dumbed down that they needed to add a bad love story to make it into an even worse romance novel. The funniest thing is, when they were promoting this movie they were saying, repeatedly, how much closer it was to the book than any other version with some slight updates. Was I a sucker. If that was the case I would have embraced it, but that was a flat out lie. If I had known what this movie was in advance I might have enjoyed it, but the promoters flat out lied and sent my expectations against them. Why they do this, I can only guess. Do they think that no one knows how to read anymore so we will accept whatever they say? That is so insulting. The billions of people who have read it are then expecting that story. Why call it "The Time Machine" then? Do as Blade Runner did. Change the name and say "based on this original work". This is as much an H. G. Wells story as the hacked War of the Worlds from Spielberg. Although this story was more believable than that garbage was (Spielberg should stick to comedies and cartoons), it was still a huge let down to me and every fan of the book I have talked to who has seen it.
All that said, there actually were some really neat things in this. Visually, this was just amazing. Costumes and FX were just stunning. The acting was okay, nothing great but nothing bad. Same with the general direction. The FX crew was just amazing though. The Morlocks were fantastic and what you would expect a devolved to almost cro-magnon race to look like. How the Eloi lived and looked was also very well thought out along with other visions of the future and past. But a pretty picture doesn't make a great movie. The score I gave this was strictly for these pieces. As for the story, I've read better from children who can't make a complete sentence. General Hollywood schlock with no actual value. They need to start finding writers who have mentally passed middle school.
Why is it that movie makers always think that they can make a story better than the original loved material? There were so many great visuals that could have made this version even better than the original 1960 version, but the script was just crap. The whole idea of the book was totally lost. The funniest part is, this movie was exactly what the book warned of. It is so dumbed down that they needed to add a bad love story to make it into an even worse romance novel. The funniest thing is, when they were promoting this movie they were saying, repeatedly, how much closer it was to the book than any other version with some slight updates. Was I a sucker. If that was the case I would have embraced it, but that was a flat out lie. If I had known what this movie was in advance I might have enjoyed it, but the promoters flat out lied and sent my expectations against them. Why they do this, I can only guess. Do they think that no one knows how to read anymore so we will accept whatever they say? That is so insulting. The billions of people who have read it are then expecting that story. Why call it "The Time Machine" then? Do as Blade Runner did. Change the name and say "based on this original work". This is as much an H. G. Wells story as the hacked War of the Worlds from Spielberg. Although this story was more believable than that garbage was (Spielberg should stick to comedies and cartoons), it was still a huge let down to me and every fan of the book I have talked to who has seen it.
All that said, there actually were some really neat things in this. Visually, this was just amazing. Costumes and FX were just stunning. The acting was okay, nothing great but nothing bad. Same with the general direction. The FX crew was just amazing though. The Morlocks were fantastic and what you would expect a devolved to almost cro-magnon race to look like. How the Eloi lived and looked was also very well thought out along with other visions of the future and past. But a pretty picture doesn't make a great movie. The score I gave this was strictly for these pieces. As for the story, I've read better from children who can't make a complete sentence. General Hollywood schlock with no actual value. They need to start finding writers who have mentally passed middle school.
Tell Your Friends