nyarlath Opinions come and go about this film. Still it moves me. It's easy to criticize the historical inaccuracy or the stilted dialog. Over time I've heard attacks on the scientific optimism of Cabal's final speech as a call to fascism! But that sentiment seems to go hand in hand with the Luddite reaction clearly illustrated at the end of the film. So far there's been no alternate vision to human progress that has actually worked. Most people don't realize how close we have come to war caused impoverishment and devastation much like that shown in the movie. Nerve gas and anthrax use was seriously contemplated during WWII. And many battles could have by chance gone differently than they did extending a 5 year war into a ruinous 10, 20 year horror that might have reduced us to what we see in the middle of the film. And lets not even talk about the nuclear genie that got us real close several times.

Myriam Nys Let's begin with the bad. The movie is not without its problems : it finds it difficult to create lifelike individuals, tell their stories (complete with a credible backhistory) and fold these stories into the larger, overarching narrative. People tend to be symbols, emblems, representatives or bearers of a certain philosophical viewpoint, rather than.. rather than, well, yes, people. There are also a number of - well, you could call them plot holes, but perhaps they're more of a continuity problem. For instance : suddenly there is the advent of "wings over the world", presumably some kind of warrior caste of aviators, engineers and scientists. The movie doesn't explain where these people come from : for all we know, they could have arrived straight from the planet Jupiter or from another dimension. And there are other moments when someone or something just appears out of nowhere, like woodland mushrooms springing into life in the space of one day. On the other hand : "Things to come" proposes truly interesting ideas about the evolution of society and the nature and direction of progress. Moreover, this is a visionary movie, boldly and accurately predicting evolutions such as World War II, large-scale aerial warfare, large-scale biological warfare, space exploration, the development of mass communication and social media, and so on. This makes for some unusually spooky viewing : at times it looks as though the various makers of the movie stepped into a time machine, obtained news reels and footage about the aerial "Blitz" attacks on England's largest cities, and returned to 1936 in order to integrate these images into the project. The visionary nature of "Things to come" is further enhanced by inventive sets and state-of-the-art visual and special effects. Finally the movie is lifted far above average by the superb score by Arthur Bliss, which is, by turns, chilling, moving, thrilling or lyrical. His deeply disquieting "war march" can stand proudly alongside Gustav Holst's "Mars, the bringer of war".

capone666 Things to ComeThe first thing to do in a post-apocalyptic world is execute all the psychics for not warning us ahead of time.Thankfully, the citizens in this sci-fi movie received many declarations of war.An air raid on Everytown from an unknown adversary sets off a global conflict that finds resident John Cabal (Raymond Massey) enlisting as an airman.Decades later, the war-torn town is devoid of technology as society has deteriorated into a dystopian wasteland controlled by warlords.But engineers have created an advanced civilization in the desert that will lead humanity into a new technological age.Exploring the evolution of humanity through the ashes of war and regenerative powers of progress, this 1936 adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel may suffer from longwinded diatribes but its unique narrative and stylized set designs are worth it.Moreover, dystopian futures are the reason the sewer housing market is so hot right now.Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

tl12 wonderful and historic film when most of you would not know important film if it bit you in the As*. I am always cheered by the cries of "this film from the 30's does not good as films now and where are all the car crashes and explosions?"I think the saddest part is that many reviewer are so terribly ignorant about film history that they don't even know that they are ignorant. Of course it does not look like a 2000+ film. When it was made it was state of the art. That is the sole way it can be judged, by the standards of it's time. The entire concept of history of all kinds and what we can learn and lessons it holds have been pitched by the masses of the ignorant that now write 90% of the reviews here. They gather all their 14 year old friends around and write such drek it makes me cry. I really have been a 3rd or 4th grade teacher so I could flunk you all till you were about eighteen and liberated from school. Because the level of the average high school student now is equal to a 3rd or 4th grader or 15 or more years ago. You make me despair. If you don't like the film for legitimate reasons, fine. It's just that now 90% of the reviewers can't even construct a reasoned argument. That is not a skill that 3rd and 4th grade students have.The seasoned and well versed film critics are growing fewer as well. They will compare a current film to a historical film of the 1990's. Yea, that's a h*ll of a historical perspective.