The Quatermass Experiment (2005)

A Masterpiece!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is a fairly dull and rather unnecessary remake of a well-known 1955 British series of sci-fi films. In 1955 this story was at least fresh and futuristic. However, in 2005 it is neither. The story involves Britain's first manned space flight (an event which, admittedly, still lies sometime in the indeterminate future). Something goes wrong and H.M. Spaceship veers off course into outer space. However, it later reappears and lands safely, and somewhat conveniently, in Surry. It also lands right beside a couple of Brits making out in a car. I kept expecting one of them to ask,"Did the earth move for you too?" but, thankfully, they didn't. Only one of the spaceship's three occupants emerges, and he appears to be suffering symptoms of withdrawal. The doctors are baffled, which seems somewhat surprising. After all, the astronaut is British, he's just traveled half a million miles through outer space, and not one of these brilliant doctors and scientists has seen fit to offer him a cup of tea. Is it any wonder that he's strung out?From there the story proceeds inexorably, and very slowly, to a rather uninteresting climax, which is hardly worth talking about. The original had the redeeming quality of mid 1950s sci-fi campiness. This one does not, nor does it offer anything in place of it.

I really liked the old Quatermass films and even though I discovered them belatedly, being from the US, I got some enjoyment out of the TV series. But this remake was simply dreadful. The writing and direction were horrendous. Most of the time it was simply dull, but occasionally the poor actors had to deliver lines that made no sense, or go from quiet discussion to drastic scenery chewing in a heartbeat. I'm a huge science fiction fan and will watch (and enjoy) almost anything with a hint of science fiction to it. I can find great pleasure in a good B film and put up with almost anything to enjoy a bit of space travel, alien contact, or futuristic speculation of any kind. But I had to give up after about 36 minutes of this. I skipped forward, dropping in once in a while if anything looked remotely interesting. It never was. Partly because it was live, partly because it was cheap, and partly because the people who created this were completely lacking in intelligence or imagination, it was utterly without even a pretense of supporting special effects (e.g., monitors with important data the actors are all discussing are tilted away from the camera so you only see the back of the monitor), the sets were plain and very few, the audio was terrible, the whole show was dark and dreary looking, and the ending was as uneventful and lame as any movie or television program I've ever seen. Do not waste your time. It's not even interesting as a curiosity. There is absolutely nothing to recommend it.

We watched this the other night because of the reputation of the cast - particularly Mark Gatiss and David Tennant - not to mention the "iconic" nature of the name Quatermass. At the time we didn't know that it had been recorded live. Hence we had no idea why there were no special effects, strange Apprentice-style flyover shots of London, not to mention some bizarre prop choices (what *was* that thing that fell on the floor in the art gallery?!). Of course these were either caused by, or designed to overcome, the technical limitations of a live broadcast.However I still don't understand the anachronisms. If it wasn't for the Tate Modern and the BBC news bulletins, there would be no reason to think this wasn't a 1950's period drama. The dialogue was in the post-imperial stiff upper lip tradition and the newspaper reporter was, bizarrely, a teddy boy. The saddest thing is the complete failure of the programme to create any tension, fear or even intellectual curiosity on the viewer's part.A wasted opportunity. They should have given this to the Doctor Who production team and done it properly - i.e., not live.

Very, very different to the flash-bang wizardry of almost all TV sci-fi these days, but a marvellous and suspenseful piece of viewing.It requires more than the usual suspension of disbelief until the characters and story fall into place, but the acting--live remember--is powerful and extremely effective. Flemying is excellent as Quatermass, and the supporting cast uniformly good.It isn't perfect. It is acted live, with all the limitations that brings with it. It has a mix of styles and seems uncertain of what year it might actually be set in, but it becomes a riveting piece of television.