Fascinating, larger than life sci-fi tale, an old school directors movie, with ideology, aesthetics and epoch-hopping action winning out over all else. Flawed and painted in very broad strokes but absolutely one of a kind.

As a film it's not very good in terms of acting or dialogue. As a piece of sci-fi history it's quite spectacular. Global apocalypse, scorched earth, viral plagues, mutant zombies, rail guns, roving bandits fighting for oil; there's a huge list of concepts here that still form the mainstay of sci-fi films today. Truly remarkable for the 1930s.

This could have been an all time favourite, it's very well acted and has a wonderful foundation and three act structure, all the elements for a great film are there. And the pre-atomic age conception of post-apocalyptic society is one not often seen in film. It stumbles a bit in transitioning the acts and making a unified whole, however, leaving great pieces and a great overarching concept held together by weak ties.

Part prediction and part allegory, the effects, the forecast of the future, and the overdone messages fail to hold up very well today. That being said, there are several redeeming factors, including the massive scope, the influence on later sci-fi, and the shockingly accurate portrayal of World War II London bombings.

Least realistic thing about this movie, that a benevolent, incorruptible dictatorship of engineers and scientists would remain as such 70 years later.

A lot of silliness. I won't fault the film for its nutty vision of THE FUTURE! because hey, it was 1936. But the script is terrible, all soapbox speeches and philosophical musings and cautionary warnings. It might be more tolerable if the performances were above the level of community theater. Amusing as a sci-fi relic, and some of the set design and effects are actually kind of cool, but way, way too hard to take seriously.

Points for this being such an early sci-fi film, but what an awful adaptation from an H.G. Wells story. This could have been fantastic, but too much attention to vapid minutiae instead of the awesome future technology. The ending sequence had so much building it up, then scene itself only a couple minutes long. Had this been made a decade or two later I'd absolutely hate it. Historic signifigance saves it. Somewhat.

A stately, ambitious mess. The only cool part is the set in the final episode (courtesy of William Cameron Menzies). Can't believe that H G Wells set his pen to this thing.

Extraordinary.

it would have been awesome at the time, but it's dated pretty badly, with some serious overacting. But some great design work, some great special effects (for it's time). Though your kids will LOATHE it. mine did. Toe knee :-)

Classic and ground-breaking. Influenced more or less all subsequent sci-fi.

A fascinating failure. Scripted by H. G. Wells himself and probably the movie with the largest scope of any besides _2001_, but it was evidently made before filmmakers had figured out that there are things that work in books that don't work in movies. Many scenes of characters mouthing paragraphs of stiff, high-falutin' dialogue, the like for which "Star Trek" would later become notorious. Clearly everyone involved wanted to do something great, but it's hard not to make fun of this picture

This film tries to cover so much of future history that it's doomed to fail. A good try anyway....

A truly disconcerting dénouement as Raymond Massey insanely browbeats the audience into embarking on some kind of intergalactic manifest destiny.