First Men in the Moon

Poster tagline: ADVENTURES BEYOND THE LIMITS OF IMAGINATION in….DYNAMATION!!! THRILL TO THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE MOON WORLD!!! Nice. In the first half (set in 1899 somewhere in Britain) the film deceives as it delivers plenty of humour, albeit somewhat infantile and forced, through the absent-minded inventor Cavor. This changes radically in the rest of the film, after reaching the surface of the moon, where a more serious note is struck when Cavor, as an unwilling emissary of humanity, confesses to the Moon King the horrors of war that have accompanied the history of planet Earth. But the main character here is not Cavor, or his assistant, or his assistant's girlfriend, but visual effects wizard Ray Harryhausen and his stop-motion figures and camera tricks. The epic proportions of the lunar underground city, the giant carnivorous caterpillar, the moonmen themselves with their fly-eyes and elongated insect-like snouts, and last but not least the cute space bathyscaphe in the form of an iron ball – all this will delight the eye of anyone who admires Harryhausen's work. The only disappointment is the quick ending, which fizzles out into nothing, as if the filmmakers had run out of ideas and money. (04/12/2012)

Yes, yes, the comedic exaggeration of the first half of the film is really lacking in the second half. Probably my biggest regret, however, was that the gentlemen (and the lady) didn't take their sidekick Gibbs with them into the "rocket", and by the end of the film I didn't hear a single cry of "Giiiiiiibbs" from the professor. The atmosphere of the entire film is pleasantly naive, and Victorian England, science fiction and H.G. Wells is known to be a good combination, but it’s just a real shame about what's happening on the Moon. It's nicely made, hats off, but it's sooooo confusing after the first encounter with the Moon’s inhabitants. (27/05/2011)