Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Elizabeth McGovern, Lea Drucker, Adel Bencherif, Emilie de Preissac, Natasha Little, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Ty Tennant, Bayo Gbadamosi, Stephen Campbell Moore, Stephane Caillard, Aaron Heffernan, Georgina Rich, Michael Marcus, Paul Gorostidi, Theo Christine, Mathieu Torloting, Alysson Paradis, Guillaume Gouix.

You wait for decades for a decent version and authoritative version of H.G. Wells’ seminal novella The War of The Worlds and then within the space of a few months two attempts are made, one daring to hold as close to the nature of the book and yet somehow failing to live up to the hype and expectation because the makers seemed to forget exactly what it was that they were producing, changing the detail without giving the source its due  representation, and then an eight part Anglo/French production which has the loosest of ties to the name and notion of the book but which on the whole at least added tension and a fair amount of intrigue which at the very least keeps the viewer interested enough to keep going.

Two versions of a classic, and yet it is War of the Worlds starring Gabriel Byrne, Lea Druker and Stephen Campbell Moore, which has continued the dystopian effect of humanity’s annihilation at the hands of an alien species hell bent on destroying us and taking our most valuable asset, that which makes us unique.

And yet, despite the series having a finer edge to it that of the B.B.C version which was arguably bordering on devastating banality, at the least a form of depressing sacrilege to the purest and the fan alike, War of the Worlds was the story in name only, the barest heaving tentacle and sense of sinister apprehension invading the space between television screen and the viewer, instead it had more in common with shows such as Survivors or any alien invasion apocalyptic serial to which have unfortunately become a plethora, an excess of what passes for entertainment on the small screen. 

It shouldn’t be complicated to appeal to those who see the works of H.G. Wells as being amongst the finest in English Literature, and to attract fans who will then take time to read his other short stories with relish, and yet it seems as if, compared to other writers of the time, as if the Grandfather of British Science Fiction is permanently overlooked as being a serious adaptor of a wealth of stories, preferring instead, relegating it seems, to the basement of the B-Movie era or at least giving the credence, the deserved homage to which Jeff Wayne installed beautifully on record.

Howard Overman’s War of the Worlds is a good attempt to re-write a classic, but one which unfortunately falls to a middling ground of surplus and underdefined conclusions.

Ian D. Hall