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 "H.G. Wells' dark vision of a world plunged into a hundred years of war, and of
the efforts of scientists to rebuild a new society on the rubble and
devastation of the old." That's all the box said. What do you expect from a
movie I bought at K-Mart about eight years ago for $2.50? 1936, 92 minutes, VHS
Okay, I've seen the other so-called reviews, and the esteemed commentators with
their praise for this movie. I've seen where people use it in their college
classes (what kind of college is that?) and how it's a serious science fiction
movie like 2001: A Space Odyssey. I've seen where the special effects are praised and where people gush about
how prophetic this movie was. So I sat down and watched this film and am here
to tell you that all of the above is a bunch of hooey. The movie isn't
important so much as it thinks it's important. What I like is where these people are busy heaping praise on
it, all the while acknowledging what is clear upon viewing it. The thing is
boring and preachy. The supporters of the movie will tell you that it is
"talky" as if that's excusable as opposed to it just being uninteresting.
Plain and simple, the movie is overrated, and doesn't really deserve this place
of honor everyone seems to have bestowed upon it. This is one of those movies
that really doesn't have a story to speak of, so much as themes and political
agendas it wants to advance. The movie is broken into three basic parts. The
first part shows us Everytown in 1936. I knew I was serious trouble when the
name of the town is something like Everytown. I'm not dumb. I know that there
is no city called Everytown, even in Britain. I don't know why these
hoity-toity authors have to concoct these bogus names for their stupid books
about their version of utopia. I have never been to Everytown, I don't know
anybody
in Everytown, and I don't really care if Everytown is bombed back into the
stone-age. On the other hand, if a meteor is heading for NYC or El-Lay, I
hoping that somebody like Bruce Willis or Tea Leoni (yeah, right) can save the
day. I understand the point they're making (with the Everytown name) about the
universality of their story, but I also think it's dumb, so there.  Raymond Massey gives an extremely mannered, off-putting, and downright
stank performance as John Cabal (Is his last name supposed to be symbolic
of
something? What?). John Cabal is one of those characters that exists solely to
spew forth the author's viewpoints with speeches and dramatic gestures. He
isn't actually a character so much as a political mouthpiece. You could see it
right at the beginning of the movie. He'd pontificate about how war is bad
(Really? Thanks for smartening me up.) through stilted dialogue and then after
saying these ridiculous things, he'd punctuate his speech by looking off in the
distance. He would do this several times in a single conversation and the
camera would make sure we saw that Cabal was "serious" since he'd talk, pause,
and stare off into nothingness. I kept thinking he was looking off-stage for
his next line. What's truly awful about the performance is that he is allowed
to repeat it when he plays John Cabal's grandson, inexplicably named Oswald, in
the last third of the movie. So you've got this loser periodically rambling
about war and then of course war breaks out and Everytown is bombed and pretty
much destroyed. All these dopes who love this movie go on and on about it
predicted WWII. Well, crap, who didn't see that one coming? I mean
Nostradamus predicted it 400 years before. H.G. probably cribbed it from him.
The bombing of Everytown went on for awhile and it was enjoyable to see people
flee in panic, and lie dead in their cars since this movie was mostly a bunch
of talk. The war drags on and on until like 30 years later when we check in on
Everytown and they are pretty much reduced to fighting a localized conflict
with an unseen group they call the "Hill People" or something. Huh, I don't
remember WWII dragging on until 1970. In fact I seem to recall that we managed
to wrap up WWII and get involved in two different wars before 1970 rolled
around. I don't think their precious movie predicted that. Guess it wasn't so
prophetic after all. In fact they didn't predict any weapons of mass
destruction and they impact they would have on the balance of power between the
superpowers. Don't remember that in the movie.  So Everytown has been reduced to a bunch of rubble, and its people
have been reduced to a bunch of rabble. There is some type of plague that
afflicts a great
many people. Its called the Wandering Sickness and involves people just
ambling about the town with their arms outstretched zombie-style, trying to
touch other people or eat their brains or something. From the way everyone
reacts, this sickness is kind of like having a really virulent strain of
cooties, because as soon as someone materializes in the street, they shoot'em
down like a couple of dogs on a runway fornicating in front of Air Force One.
It is through this aggressive "treatment" of the disease that the Wandering
Sickness is conquered. Is this another thing the movie predicted with its
Jeane Dixon-like accuracy. I mean, don't you all remember that plague that was
kind of like the Wandering Sickness? I think it was called Lyme's Disease or
something. So now that the sickness has been conquered, we can return to the
task of rebuilding civilization or at least to continue to fight the Hill
People.
Everytown is now "governed" by a dude affectionately named "The Boss." He's a
law and order type who tries to bully everyone around him, promises that
victory is assured in days, and wears a bunch of fur wraps that he probably
thinks makes him look like Atilla the Hun, but only reminds the viewer
of one Liberace's more subdued costumes. I will give this movie some credit the
prognostication department. This boss and his post-apocalyptic world kind of
reminded of Kevin Costner's abortion, The Postman. With that movie, I thought it was kind of cool that Costner tricked a bunch
of dummies into ponying up millions upon millions of dollars to make a Mad Max
movie
starring a mailman as the hero. But, on the other hand I thought it was kind
of sucky that he tricked me into flushing my five bucks down the Costner to sit
through a Mad Max movie starring a mailman as a hero, especially when that
movie was in excess of well over two hours. I mean, was I suppose to get
goosebumps when they would yell, "ride, Postman, ride" as Costner would gallop
away on some hearty steed in super slo-mo? The only thing I'd be thinking if I
lived then was, "I hope that bastard gets me my Entertainment Weekly on time before the TV listings are out of date!"  So this Boss character is ranting and raving about how he needs the airplanes
to be operational again so that the Hill People can be defeated once and for
all. The guys at NAPA keep telling him that it doesn't matter whether they
have the right parts or not, because there is no fuel. The Boss tells them
they are going to be fighting the Hill People at the Old Coal Mine and once
they get coal, they can make gas or something. This is from a guy who doesn't
even have the technology to get himself a decent suit. About this time,
there's humming in the air and everyone looks up to see an airplane. It lands
and out steps a tall, lean figure with a penchant for staring off into space
like he's autistic or something after making a grand speech. Yes, it is the
return of John Cabal! Older and much, much wiser, as he will tell you over and
over and over again. He's dressed in some type of very tight black leather
flying suit that made me think at first, that he was just stopping by to ask
The Boss where the Rally was being held at, but it turns out that he is from
some secret utopia. Don't really know how hooked up with this outfit he calls
Wings Over The World or something, but he has and they are a society of
scientists that are rebuilding civilization based on the rule of science and
not on military force. The Boss tells him he's a prisoner and John Cabal
informs him that his pals at WOW will be looking for him and when they find
him, it's bombs away. Of course, since they're all scientists, their bombs are
full of Peace Gas or something that only puts you to sleep (riiiight!). To
make doubly sure that we know Boss is bad and WOW is good, The Boss declares
that books are useless and unnecessary. Hmm, I can think of at least one book
that fits into that category, H.G. Anyway the peace gas is dropped, the boss
goes nighty-hight except he also has a bullet hole in his head and we are
finished with another time period in H.G.'s dead-on prediction of the future.
Now it
is off to the far future, when St. Louis Cardinal fans still whine about that
call at first that Don Denkinger made in the World Series when they were facing
the Kansas City Royals and the Rolling Stones have embarked on another of their
final
farewell tours. The year is 2036. First the good news, John Cabal is dead. Now the bad news, Oswald Cabal, his
grandson who's exactly like his grandpappy, is in charge. Everytown is now a
complete technocracy where reason and science rule and progress is the only
goal. The big gimmick now is something they call the Spacegun. Seems a bit
militaristic to call a vehicle to send you to the moon a gun of any type, but I
guess they're more advanced then me (heck, I still refer to the little
MonsterHunter in my pants as a "gun" on occasion). The Spacegun is some big
gizmo
they're going to use to send some Everytowners into space with. The technology
is amazing in that somehow they managed to turn the concept behind the circus
cannon into something to build a space program around. All is not quadratic
equations and Bunsen burners in Everytown, though. Cedric Hardwicke, apparently
appearing before he was knighted for his work battling various Invisible Men in
the 1940s, appears as an artist or beatnik or hepcat or whatever. He riles up
the masses that the Spacegun is bad and progress smells like Oswald Cabal's
so-called Peace Gas. They storm the Spacegun, it gets shot off anyway and
Oswald Cabal is able to make a final grand pronouncement, complete with
upturned chin and vacant stare. I guess H.G. was making his bid to be the L.
Ron Hubbard of the early 20th century with his simplistic version of what life
should be like: Let science rule and progress dominate. At least L. Ron
managed to fool a bunch of rich dummies like John Travolta and Tom Cruise into
swallowing his pablum. I really think that science-fiction writers should give
up on trying to invent religions and perfect societies in the real world.
Let's leave that up to the experts like Brigham Young and George W. H.G.'s
version of what the ideal world is, reeks for a thousand reasons, but I'm really
tired of thinking about this movie, so I'm only going to go into one of those.
He presents the rebellious artist as a reactionary fool and positions this
Cabal idiot as some kind of all-knowing god-like figure. Society without art
and without dissent and vigorous debate and mobs of people storming advanced
spaceguns, isn't much of a society at all. His premise is that progress is
the end all and be all and that those who would speak about art and the
individual are merely to be patted on the head and dismissed, so that all the
old white male scientists (that's all I saw in this perfect society, folks!) can
go about the business of running the show and making all the decisions for
everyone. Doesn't sound like any kind of world I'd want to inhabit anymore
than I would want to live in the one run by The Boss. In the end, H.G., it is
clear that you've fallen into the trap so many, lazy armchair utopiaists have
fallen into, you've simply replaced one group of tyrants with another. Just
because they're nerds doesn't make it any less objectionable. An overrated
"classic" that has not stood the test of time and should be avoided unless
you're a nerd who fantasizes about ruling the world (and even then you should
probably just stick with Revenge of the Nerds).
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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