A musical version of H.G. Wells classic tale of alien invasion.

In 1979, Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of the Worlds impacted the world like a cylinder from Mars. The narrator is voiced by Richard Burton who puts all of himself into the words spoken. Other parts are played by Justin Heywood (of the Moody Blues) as the sung thoughts of the journalist (the narrator), Phil Lynott (lead singer of Thin Lizzy) as the preacher, and David Essex as the artillary man.

Perhaps the unsung stars of the piece though is the music, put together with synthesizers, heavily distorted guitars and various other instruments, backed by a string section that ties it all together. The opening music is as distinctive as the opening few bars of Star Wars. With various themes throughout the record, each for a particular situation, each part of the story stands out from each other while still being tied together.

With the dialog taken straight from the book, the combination, along with the music, leaves the listener to imaging so much of the story that it becomes personal. Each person has their own impressions of what the Martians look like, even what journalist looks like. The only thing not left to the imagination is the Martian war machines, the tripods that are so wonderfully illustrated on the cover and throughout the booklet. Perhaps one of the most iconic album covers ever, the image of the war machine firing its heat ray on the destroyer Thunderchild is burnt into so many people’s memory.

Luckily, the musical version is set in Victorian times, the same as the book. Don’t get me wrong, the two movies (1953 and 2005) were both enjoyable, both had good and bad moments, but they both lacked something that only the original setting could convey. After all, when Martians land nowadays, we have nuclear weapons, lasers etc… available to us so we wouldn’t be as concerned as if we were living in Victorian times without anything more powerful than cannons to go up against these Martian war machines carrying heat rays. It becomes a lot more scary without planes to escape on, without advanced weapons to fight with, and without global communications to be kept informed as to what is happening.

The album has been re-issued several times along with re-mixes. At present, there is even a tour of the album where the musicians are backed by an animated movie and a giant head of Richard Burton.

I truly believe that Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds is as important and significant as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I really do wish that some brave movie maker would do yet another remake of the book but set it in the right era, with the Martian machines looking as they did on the cover of the album. It would HAVE to incorporate both the music and the designs from the album, but most of all, it would have to use the classic ULLA to voice the Martians.

A military robot, designed as a solider suddenly becomes aware and for all intents and purposes, living. The military obviously want the robot back but Number 5 has developed a mind of its own!

This movie could have gone in one of two ways, either a crazy killing machine that is unstoppable, indestructible, and pretty mean as well, or it could become a peaceful, cloud watching hippie that wants to avoid getting disassembled. I am sure you can work out which direction it went.

Starring Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy, Short Circuit is one of those movies that could honestly be called a guilty pleasure for a lot of people. Its not a breathtaking movie filled with special effects and action, but it still captures the imagination of the viewer as Number 5 goes through life, experiencing and learning.

One of the reasons why Short Circuit was so enjoyable was the sheer number of quotable lines spoken by Number 5. “No disassemble Number 5!!”, “Stephanie, Beautiful”, “Number 5 alive!”. Or perhaps its just me?

A family orientated movie about a war robot and the fun occurs when it goes mad!

On a Russian factory boat, up in the cold of the Bering Sea, working on a line, gutting fish, is Arkady Renko. Formerly an Investigator in Moscow, he now hides far from his enemies reach, unknown, undiscovered, unimportant. Until that is, one of the women workers is found caught up in a fishing net from an American trawler.The follow on from the amazing Gorky Park, Polar Star puts one of the most enjoyable lead characters in Arkady Renko, in the hostile environment of a fishing factory ship. Renko is everything you want in a hero, determined, honest, and incredibly likable.The plot twists and turns, doings its best to distract the reader, and Renko, from finding out what happened to the woman but it keeps the pages turning over at a rapid pace.Polar Star is as good as Gorky Park, brilliantly written and with a main character that could make any story a good one!

Humans discover a giant pyramid under the ice of Antarctica. What they think is a a relic of a past civilisation turns out to be a killing ground for two breeds of killers. One is a cosmic hunter that lives to hunt while the other is a pure bred killing machine with acid for blood. The humans are just in the way.

Two well known and loved franchise collide in this adaptation of the comic book series. In the same way that people wondered who would win in a battle between Darleks and Cybermen, Aliens and Predators have fought in many deathmatches in the heads of fans around the world.

If truth be told, the only reason humans are even involved in the story is to insert some reference for the viewers, as simply watching the two groups of creatures would really not occupy the attention. A bit like watching a foreign movie without subtitles. Humans are also used as bait, fodder and for squishy deaths. The plot is not a great one and just exists to present the battle.

An ok movie if you are a fan of either franchise but not much more to redeem it.

A family in the countryside wake up one morning to find crop circles in their fields. In the following days, crop circles appear around the world. Are they connected and do they have a sinister purpose? A fallen preacher and his family find themselves under seige in the farm house as the makers of the circles appear.

Mel Gibson stars as the preacher who no longer believes after his wife is killed. The focus of the movie stays on his family as they react to the events occurring around the world. Rather than looking at the big picture, Signs looks at the small picture of one family. It doesn’t have huge special effects to blow the viewer away, it uses television broadcasts very well to convey what is happening around the world.

In the best way, this is a sci fi B movie. It isn’t a block buster, it doesn’t have non stop action, instead it has a great story, utilizes unseen rather than on screen and injects humour from time to time to stop becoming too much of a horror movie.

Yes, it is a M. Night Shyamalan movie so there is the ending of the movie which is either obvious from the hints dropped throughout the movie or shocking and surprising. Signs is the first movie from Night that the viewer notices things said or done that are obviously being setup for later on.

There are several subtext to the movie, including the obvious one of one man’s relationship with God, but they don’t interfere with the main plot of crop circles and who made them.

Signs is opposite to the recent remake of War of the Worlds. While Tom Cruise and family ran, and went through challenges, Signs keeps the family at home and yet puts them through scares and challenges as good as any in War of the Worlds.

As previously mentioned, Signs is a classic science fiction B movie. If it had been made in the 50s, it would have fit in very well indeed, and that is not an insult by any means.

Jack Reacher is in the wrong place at the wrong time when a woman is kidnapped. Taken along, he discovers who the woman is, and may have found out why she has been kidnapped. Now he has to save her.

A well paced plot that keeps the action ticking, Die Trying is the second book featuring Jack Reacher. Reacher is trained, skilled and determined, pretty much what you would want in a hero. He thinks logically about problems and solves them in his head before he begins to solve them with his hands.

Like a John Sandford or a Chuck Logan book, there isn’t humour or fun in the pages, just a gritty thriller that doesn’t let up until the end.

A enjoyable book with a likeable main character!

A futuristic London where a fascist government rules with an iron hand is the scene for a moving, horrifying and hopeful movie about what happens when the men who are in charge become too controlling.

A masked man unleashed a revenge that lasts a year and during which time, the truth of what has happened to the country is revealed. Innocents are caught up in the revenge, and truths about them change who they are.

I am finding it hard to explain what the movie is about even though I know what it was about and I have already read the graphic novel. I think perhaps because this is a movie with many layers, many sub plots and with very many facets to each. I am sure that some people will watch it and say that it is a social comment on the state of some countries right now. I am sure others will think it a poor relation to the Matrix. All I know is that it is a powerful movie that doesn’t avoid the pain to soften the blow. I loved the movie but I wonder if perhaps many people will simply not get it. I hope they do because this is a very well acted, well written story that was important enough for Alan Moore when he wrote it, even if he doesn’t want his name attached to it now.

Obviously there were changes to the plot, some for speed, others, perhaps to make the story more palatable. In this time of terrorists around the world, this movie perhaps shows the difference between one who is simply a terrorist and someone who is fighting for something more. Its a thin line that often appears differently to different people.

In the end this is a major movie that people should sit up and take notice of.

A computer programmer creates a simulation world where you can log in and be someone else. The problem is that his co-programmer just got killed and the police think he did it.

An interesting idea thats a mixture of Tron, The Matrix and Dark City. What happens if the people in the simulation believe they are real?

Well acted and visually stunning to look at, the 13th floor is an interesting movie on several layers. You have the normal whodunnit, the what is real issue, plus you have the what the hell is going on issue, all combining to make a very enjoyable movie.

The main actors, while none of them house hold names, perform very well, bringing each character to life.

The only disappointing part of the movie is the soundtrack that sounds as if they are just playing Star Trek (The Motion Picture) at times. Its a little overpowering for what is needed.

Over all a very interesting movie.

A experimental space craft designed to travel faster than light is found after disappearing seven years ago. A team of search and rescue, along with the ships designer are dispatched to find out what happened and to rescue the crew. Then things go bad.

I will state straight away that this is not my type of movie. I don’t like haunted houses, or things that make me jump because I scream like a little girl when provoked. That being said, this isn’t a bad movie. It is purely a horror movie based in space like the original Alien, but without a creature to cause the violence. It also is pretty similar to Solaris in the way that the characters are affected differently.

Event has a great cast with Sam Neill playing a totally different character to normal. Laurence Fishburne as the captain is pretty much Laurence Fishburne playing a captain. The one stand out actor for me was Sean Pertwee as Smith.

Visually the movie looks very good with the space scenes very realistic. The horror aspects of the film were scary and gruesome enough to please everyone.

While it was a sci fi movie to a point, not my kind of movie. About a seven out of ten if I had to pick!

In the near future, the world is falling apart. War, social upheaval and cival unrest as led to Britains borders being shut and all refugees being kept in camps. The possible cause of all this. Infertility. No one has given birth in nearly twenty years. When Theo is asked to help a young woman get to the open see, he takes the job for money but soon he is doing it for a lot more.

This is a bleak outlook for the future of the planet. Everything is falling down, and Britain is portrayed in a very similar vein to the Britain in V for Vendetta. This movie though looks and feels so different. Visually, it feels like a documentary as you have long shots that last for minutes on end while bullets fly and bombs explode. Some of the camera work is truly special, with a mixture of handheld shots and slow pans that seem to take forever.
Starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Chiwetel Ejiofor (still have no idea how to pronounce his name) and Michael Caine, this movie is believable, from the plot to the action, to the violence which seems very realistic. This is a seriously amazing movie.

Throughout this movie, while there is death and violence, there is humour and hope. The humour is not only used to lighten a movie that perhaps could be too dark for most people’s taste but it also shows that no matter the situation, someone somewhere will find something funny.

Children of Men is a moving, dramatic, thrilling, action packed, realistic portrayl of the future, a future I hope doesn’t come about. It has been classed as a science fiction movie because of being set in a near future but it much more than that. This is one of those movies that if you like movies at all, you must see. Its a movie that should get a mention come awards season. This is a movie you have to watch and perhaps own. It really is that good.