After hearing the word of mouth of just how bad this film is I took the plunge and bought the DVD. That said everything previously mentioned about this film is true. For a film that claimed to have a budget in the millions it just does not show on the screen at all. The list of problems with the film could drag on forever. Chief amongst them is the film is simply too long. It dragged on for a few minutes short of 3 hours. Nearly an hour probably could have been cut off the run time had the editor simply removed the overabundance of scenes dealing with nothing more then the main character wandering around aimlessly.
Secondly, as many had pointed out from the "trailers", the special effects are anything but special. The tripods looked OK in a few shots here and there but beyond that everything was grade-Z 1970's or 1980's quality. Probably the worst effects of all were the horses, which stiffly tottered back and forth as they moved. The heat ray effects were laughable, as people were reduced to bones that somehow were still able to flail about without any muscles. Also pitiful was the Thunderchild sequence, in which the Thunderchild, described in the book as an ironclad ram, looked nothing of the sort. Instead it resembled a World War 1 era destroyer, complete with deck guns (which fired but had no visible crew), and torpedo tubes.
The colors and backgrounds were just as bad as the effects. Most laughable of all was a scene early on in which the main character and his wife go for a nighttime stroll and he points out Mars to her in the sky. Well, the sky is black, but the views of the characters and the landscape around them is broad daylight. There is also a very sharp demarcation between the real landscape, bathed in full sunlight, and the fake black night sky with overly large fuzzy stars. To detract even further, the color of the scenes made no sense. In some they are bathed in orange light. In others green light. In still others it's blue light. In some instances the outsides are orange lit but the interiors of houses are green or blue. The frame-rate and camera is very shaky, giving everything a stuttering look.
Finally, the acting is overall sub-par. One man portrays two characters who's sole difference was one lacked a mustache. This led to some confusion at times as to who was who and where they all were. The English accents, even to American ears, are outrageous.
In summary, this movie could very well make a claim to being the worst film released in recent times. I have not seen Gigli or some of the other recent flops but this one, because of it's poor quality in every respect, must easily be worse then anything that mainstream Hollywood has put out. I would not be surprised if the movie makes it to the bottom 10 or 20 in the IMDb rankings. It's a pity that Mystery Science Theater is not still around.
