I was up late last night (or this morning, take your pick) and saw that this movie was on. So I watched it. Bearing in mind that this movie was made in the 60s, I think it could have been worse. Some highlights:

- The dress shop across from the time traveler's house. It stays a dress shop for nearly a century.

- The apocalypse occurs in 1966.

- A volcano erupts in London.

- Time lapse photography of flowers opening and closing. The movie won an Oscar for this!

- The Eloi. They don't know how to make fire, harvest fruit, read or write, but they always have perfect hair.

In the book, it made sense that the workers underground evolved into Morlocks while the leisure class turns into brainless simps. In the movie, however, one half of the population wears cheap white gorilla suits with rather unconvincing yellow eyes, and the other half are a bunch of perfectly groomed apathetic blondes. (I'm not making fun of blondes. Every Eloi in the movie is blonde.)

If you only see one truly horrible movie this year, make it "Sinbad of the Seven Seas." But if you see two really horrible movies, this one is a solid four turkeys. Don't miss it.

Response From RinkWorks:

The book is unquestionably superior, but then, isn't it always? Nevertheless, I liked the movie, with reservations. The Special Effects Oscar it won wasn't just for time lapse photography of a flower -- it was also for the stunning (for the time) effects of the time travel itself. The book's description of this is one of the most vividly depicted visual images I've ever read. Naturally the movie doesn't do it justice, but considering the year it was made (1960), it's a remarkable effort.

Where the movie falters, as you point out, is with the portrayal of the Eloi and Morlocks. The two races, rather than how Wells portrayed them, ended up being the stereotypical Atlansian Paradise Residents and the stereotypical Grungy Monsters, respectively. That part was quite disappointing.

-- Sam.