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.
By Gary Goldstein
December 18, 2012, 5:00 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 a 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 10-story-tall, three-legged
mechanical monsters, declared war against the Earth, armed — literally —
with deadly propulsive heat rays and poisonous gas.
(Entire Article)