The Time Machine Reviews

This smashing science-fiction adaptation of H.G. Wells's famous novel has more creativity in every frame than most latter-day rip-offs have in their entirety. Rod Taylor plays George, an inventor who confounds his contemporaries in Victorian England by unveiling his new time machine. His friends think he's lost his mind, but after they leave, George takes off in his machine, whizzing through time but not through space. Therefore, all of his adventures take place in the same general area of England but at various points in history. He makes brief stops at both World Wars, the atomic confrontations of the future (1966 according to this film), and even as far ahead as the year 802,701. In this futuristic era, he finds humanity divided into two groups--the Eloi, normal-looking humans who live above ground, and the Morlocks, horrifying mutants who live beneath the ground. The Eloi are a vapid, incredibly passive lot, and George is stunned to learn that they are nothing more than cattle for the cannibalistic Morlocks. He falls in love with Weena (Yvette Mimieux), one of the Eloi, and sets out to help her people overcome their oppressors. Producer-director George Pal had already made quite a name for himself with his "Puppetoon" stop-motion animation techniques, and here he again delivers some amazing special effects.