TV miniseries based on Ray Bradbury's classic book of the same name. Film adaptations of Bradbury's novels rarely work; they lose the lyrical beauty and visual splendour of his words. This one was scripted by Richard Matheson, so I had higher hopes than usual. They fell away almost instantly and shattered on the floor. I swept them under the rug hoping my sense of enthusiasm wouldn't notice.
The book was a collection of short stories that together documented a history of Earth's attempt to explore and colonise the neighbouring red planet. The miniseries follows that same formula. However, if you weren't aware of the vignette nature of the source material you'd maybe wonder why the TV adaptation feels so lamely stitched together.
The first episode has three tales in sequence. It's a kind of early version of The Ray Bradbury Theatre. It's clearly low budget, but they try. Sadly, they mostly fail. The episode is boring, with bad acting and long periods of dodgy FX. I can forgive dodgy FX, but I can't forgive bad editing of them.
The second episode takes a different approach and mixes two stories together. It manages to be more engaging some of the time. It's still far from successful, but is a thousand times better than the preceding one.
The third episode is even further removed from the source material and does nothing to redress or balance out the failings of the previous two.
There are some familiar faces amongst the cast but they really don't care about the material. The only exception is Rock Hudson who at least tries to emote.
If, like me, you're a Bradbury fanatic and think you want to own TMC, then do yourself a huge favour and rent it first. Better still, read the book again.
3 episodes, approx 98 mins each.
1½ silver locusts out of 5
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