Los Angeles Times I Movies
Review: 'War of the Worlds: The True Story' is
clever like Wells
'War of the Worlds: The True Story' is an inventive mock sci-fi docudrama with the conceit that H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds is a true story.
MOVIE REVIEW
Looking back
on the Martian
Apocalypse
H.G. Wells' story of interplanetary war is treated as fact in a clever take on it,
D6 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2012
By Gary Goldstein
December 28, 2012 15:00 a.m.
What if the Earth/Mars battle from H.G. Wells' classic novel "The War of the Worlds" wasn't fiction but actually fact? That's the conceit behind the hugely inventive and ambitious concoction "War of the Worlds: The True Story," a mock sci-fi docudrama packed with 3 truly impressive — and clever — mix of editing (a reported 3 1/2 years' worth), special effects, visual artistry and offbeat storytelling.
Director-editor Timothy Hines (he also co-wrote with producer and cast member Susan Goforth) sets his
provocative tale around a supposed found-footage interview, "originally" shot in 1965, with 86-year-old Englishman Bertie Wells (Floyd Reichman), the last living eyewitness to the turn-of-the-century Martian Apocalypse.
Flashing back to the shocking "invasion," this particular Mr. Wells recounts how Martians, in the form of io-story-tall, three-legged mechanical monsters, declared war against the Earth, armed — literally — with deadly propulsive heat rays and poisonous gas. Amid the mayhem, the younger Wells (Anthony Piana) must travel across an annihilated England to reunite with his beloved wife (Goforth). That is, if she's still alive.
Bertie Wells' retelling, supplemented by voice-over narration (by Jim Cissell), is intercut with an eye-popping variety of original dramatic, live-action and special effects footage blended (or composited) with reworked archival scenes of war and destruction from the early 19005. Each shot was then effectively aged to match what would be its actual archival state.
It's quite a production. calendar@latimes.com
Photographs by Pendragon Pictures
MISS ELPIIINSTONE (Jamie Lynn Sease) is seen in "War of the Worlds: The True Story?
LAST SURVIVOR Bertie Wells (Floyd Reiehman) recounts his memories of the Martian invasion.
Bertie Wells, the last survivor of the Earth Mars War, recounts his eyewitness memories of the invasion. in ''War of the Worlds: The True Story:' (Pendragon Pictures)
Los Angeles Times I Movies
Review: 'War of the Worlds: The True Story' is
clever like Wells
'War of the Worlds: The True Story' is an inventive mock sci-fi docudrama with the conceit t)-iatt H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds is a true story.
MOVIE REVIEW
Looking back
on the Martian
Apocalypse
H.G. Wells' story of interplanetary war is treated as fact in a clever take on it,
D6 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2012
By Gary Goldstein
December 28, 2012 15:00 a.m.
What if the Earth/Mars battle from H.G. Wells' classic novel "The War of the Worlds" wasn't fiction but actually fact? That's the conceit behind the hugely inventive and ambitious concoction "War of the Worlds: The True Story," a mock sci-fi docudrama packed with 3 truly impressive — and clever — mix of editing (a reported 3 1/2 years' worth), special effects, visual artistry and offbeat storytelling.
Director-editor Timothy Hines (he also co-wrote with producer and cast member Susan Goforth) sets his
provocative tale around a supposed found-footage interview, "originally" shot in 1965, with 86-year-old Englishman Bertie Wells (Floyd Reichman), the last living eyewitness to the turn-of-the-century Martian Apocalypse.
Flashing back to the shocking "invasion," this particular Mr. Wells recounts how Martians, in the form of io-story-tall, three-legged mechanical monsters, declared war against the Earth, armed — literally — with deadly propulsive heat rays and poisonous gas. Amid the mayhem, the younger Wells (Anthony Piana) must travel across an annihilated England to reunite with his beloved wife (Goforth). That is, if she's still alive.
Bertie Wells' retelling, supplemented by voice-over narration (by Jim Cissell), is intercut with an eye-popping variety of original dramatic, live-action and special effects footage blended (or composited) with reworked archival scenes of war and destruction from the early 19005. Each shot was then effectively aged to match what would be its actual archival state.
It's quite a production. calendar@latimes.com
Ph otos raphs by Pe nd rago n
res
resMISS ELPIIINSTONE (Jamie Lynn Sease) is seen in "War of the Worlds: The True Story?
LAST SURVIVOR Bertie Wells (Floyd Reiehman) recounts his memories of the Martian invasion.
Bertie Wells, the last survivor of the Earth Mars War, recounts his eyewitness memories of the invasion. in ''War of the Worlds: The True Story:' (Pendragon Pictures)
