A small independent movie production company nobody has ever heard of touts making the first ever movie version of H.G. Wells’ novel to be set in Victorian times just like the book… I’m sure someone out there could better recount the storied history of this production that been ballyhooed since before to the tragic events of 9/11 appeared to temporarily shelve it. The adaptation was co-written, photographed, edited, and directed by a relative unknown named Timothy Hines. If the end result had been a solid production then all the glory would have been his. Alas, the only glory he can bask in is the knowledge that he has officially usurped Uwe Boll’s place as the modern poster boy for bad filmmaking. It seems the guy, or at least someone tied to him, even had the nerve to claim that Dreamworks organized a smear campaign against him and his movie and that all the negative reviews that have appeared online so far are by people on their payroll, as if his film could really somehow adversely affect the Spielberg/Cruise blockbuster even if his version had turned out to be a great film. If the conspiracy theories were true then I should be getting a really nice check from Mr. Spielberg for what I’m about to write.

Part of me almost feels a little bad for Mr. Hines. The man spent several years working on what he promised would be an epic version of a classic novel that has never been brought to the screen in its original form. After years of hyping the project to the point that speculation began that Hines himself was either delusional or a conman, the film finally arrives and the only real entertainment value you're likely to get out of it will come from throwing the DVD against the wall in a sad attempt to recreate your favorite scenes from I COME IN PEACE. Pendragon’s production of H.G. WELLS’ WAR OF THE WORLDS is a monumental failure on every possible level.

First of all...

IT'S THREE FREAKIN' HOURS LONG!!!!

This is absolutely uncalled for. There is no justification for this movie running three hours in length. Making a faithful adaptation of a novel does not mean filming every last paragraph, or at least the ones that fall within the budget. There are no deleted scenes in the DVD extras section. How could there be? Hines was obviously so in love with his creation that he couldn't bring himself to edit anything out of the movie. We get one pointless scene after another that any sane director would have edited out. There are countless scenes that go on for minutes at a time that a real film editor would have cut altogether or condensed to half a minute or so. Hell, nearly half the movie could be considered padding. I swear to God I cannot recall the last time I saw a movie with so many scenes that go on forever without amounting to a damn thing. And remember…

IT'S THREE FREAKIN' HOURS LONG!!!!

Characters are constantly running through fields, riding in a horse and carriage, wandering the woods, or cowering inside of or behind something, and almost all of these moments go on far beyond any point of reason and contain very little or no dialogue or anything that advances the plot or develops the characters in any way, shape, or form.

For example, a soldier has a flashback of how he fled the first confrontation with the tripods. We see him cowering under some wreckage, then he runs off through a field, then he stops to survey some destruction, then he runs some more, then he stops to look around again, then he runs to… You get the idea. After all that extraneous stuff, the scene quickly fades back to him at a table tearfully recounting this tale.

I'm a guy that can appreciate even the worst bad movie to some extent but this film is insufferable. The longer it went on, the more angry I became with it and its clueless director, who must have convinced himself that he was making high drama when putting together a four and half minute scene that consists of nothing more than a guy riding in a boat, crawling ashore, and walking aimlessly before collapsing from exhaustion. Through the course of three hours I went from at least wanting to give Hines credit for trying to make a film as overly ambitious as this to hoping he would burst into superimposed translucent flames like the people that get blasted with the Martian heat ray in his epic failure.

Speaking of superimposed translucent flames, let's talk about those special effects. I assure you they are only special in a “Corky” from Life Goes On sort of way. Hines appears to have been aiming for a visual look similar to what we saw in SKY CAPTAIN & THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, albeit in a much cheaper, PBS-like manner. He also incorporates quite a bit of location shooting that only serves to make the virtual stuff stick out like a sore thumb.

Hines must also really love the color orange because he chose to film the bulk of the movie in an ugly orange hue that only succeeds in making the picture that much more unpleasant to look at and this movie is unpleasant enough to watch as it is. This really is one of the ugliest looking movies I've ever seen. Every single scene is either tinted orange, green, or blue, depending on what time of day it's supposed to be. Basically, the movie come in three flavors: Mango, Lime, and Blueberry, and they're all sour.

As for the tripods and the various scenes of mass destruction, well, let me put it this way. If the BBC had produced a video game based on H.G. Wells original novel of WAR OF THE WORLDS about 5 years ago then much of the CGI here would be perfectly suited for the cut scenes. I honestly couldn't tell if Hines used stop motion combined with CGI or used CGI so clunky that it looks like stop motion. If it was his intention to create computerized visuals that look like old-fashioned special effects then he both succeeded and failed at the same time. The cityscapes look like they're primed for an attack by the X From Outer Space, yet even the destruction grows tedious since every exploding building looks exactly like the one before it and blowing up random buildings makes up about 90% of the Martian's activities. I suppose it is somewhat comforting to know that it is possible to make CGI action just as dull and empty in an ultra low budget movie as it is in so many megabudget blockbusters.

The first few appearances of the Martian tripods are downright embarrassing. They look as if they are zipping around on wheels and don't weigh a thing. The tripod effects do get slightly better as the film progresses but their screen time is limited and they still don't do a whole lot more than just walkabout. But hey, why should the Martians get to do more than the human characters?

As for the Martians themselves, they look like mutant octopus designed for a preschool kiddy show with a sci-fi theme. Be glad you rarely see them outside their ships.

The true highlight (Or would that be lowlight?) of the film would be the "Thunder Child" sequence involving the Martian tripods in the water confronting computer animated vessels that look like bathtub toys. The boats have so little detail you’d think they were woodcarvings. As one of them gets sunk we are even treated to what appears to have been a Lego person or an army man or some sort of tiny action figure sliding down the deck to its death. You’ll have to look closely but it’s there. The whole "Thunder Child" sequence certainly didn't need anything extra to make it completely appalling since Hines managed film the action incoherently. Are they coming or going or both? It’s impossible to tell. The Martians even blast a hole in one, a hole that magically vanishes seconds later.

There are a couple other scenes that give that one a run for its money in the astoundingly bad department. There's the scene during the attack on London (the attack only takes up about 60 seconds of the film if that much) where a crowd of CGI people run past a computer generated carriage that looks like a cardboard cutout. There's also that train wreck sequence that's about as poorly realized as those two lizards with glued on horns and frills passing for dinosaurs that rolled around fighting in a bunch of old black & white science fiction films. And who can forget the woman getting drained by the Martians, an effect that appears to have been realized through melted Barbie Doll technology? I swear there is so much one could rag on but I won't because this film takes things far beyond the realm of ridicule and into the domain of just being downright pathetic.

The best special effect in this entire fiasco is the lead actor's fake mustache. The thing is so phony looking you cannot help but be mesmerized by it at times. I was amazed it never fell off.

The acting isn't so much bad as it is stilted. Ever watch a show on the History Channel that intercuts the documentary stuff with dramatic recreations by actors? The acting on display is along the lines of the performances you'd see in one of those reenactments. It feels forced, stagy, and you always get the sense that the actors are fully aware of the fact that they are acting in a period film. We also get more reaction shots than any five Spielberg movies combined. Unfortunately, the actors can be counted on to either overdo their facial expressions or give off little more than a blank stare.

So to sum it all up: the acting is stagy at best, the visual effects range from laughable to pitiful, the actual look of the movie is hideous, and it's a three hour borefest. Good lord, this wasn't a movie. This was an ordeal.

I don't know what was going through the mind of this Timothy Hines guy but the man seems to possess Stephen Sommers' love for bad CGI overkill, the self indulgent ego of Kevin Costner circa THE POSTMAN, and the general clueless of Ed Wood. As much as people rag Uwe Boll, at least he has never made a three-hour ego trip like this... yet.