Whovian

In general, I tend to appreciate low-budget films. Either I admire them for being creative within limited resources, or I laugh at them for utterly failing to accomplish their goals. Thus, I went into this film at least expecting to be mildly amused. Unfortunately, the movie falls into the most unwatchable category of film: the failed comedy. The script isn't much to begin with, and the cast is very weak; combine these two things with inconsistent, hard-to-understand fake accents, and you have an unwatchable mess. Since the whole thing is supposed to be funny, the viewer can't even have the luxury of laughing at it for falling short of its ambitions. Unless you enjoy cringing, I'd recommend looking elsewhere for entertainment.

I just watched this movie, and despite (or perhaps because of) my low expectations, I was pleasantly surprised. While there's certainly nothing brilliant here in terms of plot or acting, a lot of work and creativity went into the special effects. Not every effect works, but the ones that came out right are quite nice-looking. Fans of stop-motion animation should definitely check this out; early stop-motion effects in the film are pretty crude, but as the film progresses, the animation keeps getting better and better. At the end... well, just see for yourself.

Last summer I picked up a copy of Geoffrey Household's novel, DANCE OF THE DWARFS. I had recently taped the film on late-night TV and figured someday it would be interesting to compare the two versions of the work. I have now read the book and watched the film, and I must say that a comparison is difficult; if I hadn't known from the credits that the book had inspired the movie, I'd have thought the few vague similarities between the works were pure coincidence! The novel is written in the form of an agricultural researcher's journal and, while it has its flaws, manages to be suspenseful and to introduce some interesting ideas. The film, on the other hand, is a painfully unthrilling adventure movie reminiscent in many ways of the unfortunate 1985 remake of KING SOLOMON'S MINES. The most tragic difference between the book and the film is that the interesting and graceful creatures of the novel have been replaced here by guys jumping around in rubber suits. The novel wasn't that great, but it didn't deserve this horrible treatment.