f-w-taylor

It's a parody of an historical drama, without drama, humour or any redeeming feature at all. Julie Andrews is embarrassing. Even the sex scenes are so coy as to be a turn-off. The two leads might have potential if they appear in something else that takes itself a little bit more seriously.

Much is made of Prof Kip Thorne's involvement to ensure realistic representation of the underlying physics. He's having a laugh, all the way to the bank as Arthur C Clark said after 2001, A Space Odyssey. Still, both films were excellent entertainment.

I saw this at the cinema when it was released and thought it disappointing. Like others, I remembered my love for the HG Wells novel, and the brilliant 1960 George Pal interpretation. But, 8 years on, I watched it again on TV and was much more impressed. There was a lot more homage to Wells and Pal than I detected the first time,even a cameo by Alan Young who was so good as Philby back then, and the performances and effects now seemed super too.

Jeremy Irons is always great, but this was might actually be his finest achievement - not the makeup, certainly, but the way he turned a rather hokey role into a masterful requiem for the human race. No other living actor could have done as well and this time around I found it very moving. Samantha Mumba spoke for humanity in an entirely different way, and almost made me forget how fetching Yvette Mimeux was in 1960. Guy Pierce I felt wasn't right; maybe it was just that he reminds me too much of Cliff Richard, or perhaps it was the fact that Rod Taylor was so perfect in the role.

The plot was fairly true to Wells in spirit, except for the contrived ending with no scientific or even pseudo-scientific basis for the way jamming the machine produced a convenient time warp that wipes out the Morlocks. I'm not usually so fickle, but what would have been a 2 or 3 rating eight years ago is now an 8 for me. Mind, you, much of the credit goes to Wells, the greatest visionary the world has ever known.

I read the reviews before watching this and was intrigued by how polarised they are.

I'm somewhere in the middle - I was entertained by the movie and thought it was well cast and acted. The standards of production are good for a made-for-TV movie, and the effects are not exactly Avatar, but OK for 1999.

The lack of faithfulness to Verne is irrelevant - they have to acknowledge him for the idea and theme, but there's no obligation or expectation to act out the book in every detail.

The main weakness for me was the childish humour and the usual prudery in bathing scenes etc, It's funny what convention allows audiences to see and hear, or not.

In summary, not a waste of time if you like this sort of thing, but pitched mainly at kids; it would have been more fun with a harder dramatic edge.

A brilliant evocation of 1950s Britain; anyone who went to school there, then, will love this. It is lighthearted, with a serious moral message, good performances, continuous action, and skillfully used musical intervals. I remember seeing it as a kid at the local small-town cinema, when it came around the first time; coming across it again, on BBC2 in an obscure afternoon slot, was a real treat. The leads are major stars, especially John Mills and Cecil Parker, and their performances are faultless, but it is the young people who carry the movie and make it so special. The music is great fun, too. Why has this not been reissued on DVD? Apart from its merits, the fact that it is a John Mills vehicle should have been enough to see it out by now, I would have thought. It seems from the other comments on this page that everyone who has seen it likes it, it is just not that easy for new people to see it if there is no DVD in the shops.