The First Men in the Moon

This was an interesting sort of a remake,, I couldnt decide if it was a genuine remake or an attempt to turn out a brand new film for very very few dollars. I would strongly advise anyone to go find the original and watch it instead. Its so close in places that i watched to see if they had slotted new actors into old scenes , if thats the case it was quite clever , if it was all new ,, it was quite sad.

This adaptation seemed void of any dramatic tension and had very little comedy. It has it's moments, but I'm struggling to think of them having just watched the film. Far too often the characters would just ramble on and on, spouting exposition. Uncomfortably trying to shoehorn between Wells's original fantasy vision and the reality of science as we understand it today. Gatis wrote the screenplay and needed a strong editor. The direction and sets were equally uninspiring. Whereas the 1964 movie lives on in my memory - this version will be quickly forgotten. All in all it was like a bad episode of Dr Who. I also have to say the make up was appalling. Rory Kinnear's fake beard looked ridiculous.

I never read the book but this is vastly different than the original movie. I didn't notice that it was made for TV until now but that explains the extremely low budget. Even with a low budget, the special effects were better than in the original. The story itself though is equally bad. At one point a guy dreams that he is in a silent movie and it's very bizarre. It's clearly just an excuse to shoehorn Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton into the movie. The end doesn't even make any sense. Mark Gatiss does have an interesting take on the story though. This is definitely worth watching if you have seen the original movie, just to see that time couldn't make it any better.

Thomas and Gattis do a nice job here in what qualifies as a remake of an oft told tale.

It's an engaging H G story of a quaint innocent trip to the Moon with quaint, innocent individuals.

The "romance" part is missing here, and somevother changes are made. Instead, we get the "bromance", and it works pretty well. Both characters are lightly likable, credible, have human faults, and human compassion.

At times, I think our director and writer try to do too much, but that's their prerogative. There's a nice blend of comic relief, such as when one character returns to Earth and in a daze tells a rogue about Gold on his craft.

This is a successful remake, and I may be lenient because the bar has been so much lower in the 21st century, but I think this one holds up on its own and will remain a solid film for generations to come.

The First Men in the Moon is a low budget BBC4 adaptation of the HG Wells book. The film stars Mark Gatiss as Cavor and Rory Kinnear as Bedford. Gatiss also adapted the screenplay.

The setting is July 1969 on the eve of the first lunar landing as a 90 year old Julius Bedford tells a young lad the story of how two men made the first journey to the Moon back in 1909.

He recounts that when he was a young man, he met Professor Cavor who had invented 'Cavorite', a substance that blocked the force of gravity and they worked together to build a ship that would fly them to the moon and encounter the Selenites.

The film is an affectionate tribute to the HG Wells book but the pacing is uneven, the drama is low key and the special effects display its low budget origins.

Gatiss and Kinnear do their best to elevate the production values but the direction does not help too much to make it more memorable.