Stars: Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, Sebastian Cabot, Alan Young

Director: George Pal

Summary: A young scientist, whose ingenious time machine propels him into the distant future, finds a civilisation totally devitalised by centuries of war. Based on H.G. Wells' famous novel.

Setting the temporal starting point of the classic H.G. Wells novel in the year 1960 (rather than 1900), this engrossing adaptation follows time traveller George (Rod Taylor) as he passes through World Wars I, II, and III and finally stops in the year 802,701. There he finds an apathetic, placid people called the Eloi and falls in love with one of their number, the beauteous blonde Weena (Yvette Mimieux). To his horror, however, he learns that the Eloi's apathy is generated by a maniacal, cannibalistic underworld--and that the only way to help them is to incite a revolution. George Pal's version of THE TIME MACHINE is an exciting and faithful cinematic production of H.G. Wells's 1895 classic.

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In 1960 producer-director George Pal's The Time Machinereshaped HG Wells' thoughtful, ironic novel into a two-fisted action movie, but one that still appeals to children and adults immensely and deserves its classic status. Wells' themes of biological and social evolution are played down, but there is a surprisingly melancholy thread as Rod Taylor's Time Traveller keeps stopping off at future wars to find that human stupidity still persists. In the first week of 1900 a group of fussy Victorians gather in Taylor's chintzy, overstuffed parlour to hear him tell of his expedition to the future, where the world is divided between the surface-dwelling, childish, beautiful Eloi and the hideous, underground, cannibal Morlocks. Wells intended both factions to seem degenerate, the logical final evolution of the class system, but Pal has Taylor pull a Captain Kirk and side with the Eloi and teach them to fight against their oppressors. The time travel sequence remains a tour de force, with a shop window mannequin demonstrating a parade of fashions as the years fly by in seconds and charming but still-effective stop-motion effects. The future is a wonderfully coloured landscape with properly gruesome cave-dwelling monsters and a winning Eloi heroine in Yvette Mimieux. It may not be totally Wells, but it's a treat.

On the DVD:The Time Machinearrives on disc in a lovely widescreen print which makes the film seem new all over again. The featurette "Time Machine: The Journey Back" combines some mild behind-the-scenes stuff about the film (and its star prop) with a moving mini-sequel reuniting stars Rod Taylor and Alan Young in a scene that actually addresses a plot point skipped over in the original. --Kim Newman

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Behind The Scenes, Interactive Menus, Scene Access, Trailer
Subtitles:	Arabic, Bulgarian, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish
Year:	1960
Release Date:	May 27, 2002
Runtime:	98 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	D 052566
Keywords:	Time, Machine, General, Wide, Screen, Fiction, Science, Horror, Sci, Fi
Genre:	Science Fiction