Popular reviews

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  Review by Matt! ★★½ 1

  Their utopian society is based in Iraq and claims to have “outlawed war”. LOL, things to come indeed.

  A pseudo-adaptation of an H.G. Wells novel and written by Wells himself, Things to Come is a centuries-spanning vintage sci-fi “epic” detailing man’s descent into war and eventual evolution through technological advancement into an idealistic utopia. I hesitantly specify “epic” because, although it features several strikingly grand set pieces for its time, what this movie actually becomes is a few montages of vaguely futuristic-looking technology sprinkled into 75 minutes of condescendingly philosophical brow-beating in the form of overdramatic monologues. Its message was admittedly timely for its era, but it quickly wears its welcome atop the soapbox once you’ve accidentally dozed off for the third time. Perhaps ambitious if made into an HBO miniseries today, but poorly aged as far as other superior H.G. Wells stories go.

  Best of: Vintage Sci-Fi Movies

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  Review by PTAbro ★★ 6

  My immediate reaction to Things to Come is essentially the same as it was to Avatar - a big budget spectacle with a too-preachy message and a fairly dull story. While I did appreciate the anthological structure to Things to Come, the stories of each of the time periods (present-day war, dystopian fiefdom, and futuristic utopia) were littered with overly dramatic, overly talkie, and overly dry characters that I really couldn't care less about, let alone the sheer horror I felt imagining having these types of people running society. Without a lick of intentional humor and a surprising lack of overt optimism until the end of the last act, the film beats the horrors of war over your head while…

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  Review by Ben Hibburd ★★★½

  'Things to Come' is the loosely based cinematic adaptation of the 'H.G Wells' novel 'The Shape of Things to Come'. The film is an interesting but dated what if.. scenario about the petty and destructive nature of mankind. It's a film that looks at how we hate what we fear or simply don't understand. It also shows what we could achieve as a civilisation if we put aside our differences and focused on science to propel ourselves towards a better tomorrow. However seeing as man is at the forefront of scientific progress, will it benefit all mankind or are we doomed to repeat past failures?

  'Things to Come' has lofty ambitions, and whilst it doesn't quite reach the heights it…

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  Review by Josh Gillam ★★★

  This classic sci-fi follows Earth over hundreds of years, a society destroyed by nuclear war gradually rebuilding itself from nothing into a seemingly utopian world. Drawing from HG Wells’ source material, the film tells an epic, decade spanning saga; considering when the story was written and filmed, everything here feels very prescient, something that’s especially true of the war segment that makes up most the first segment. 

  It even predicts aspects of the Second World War years before they happened; a sequence eerily anticipating the Blitz ends up containing some of the most striking moments of the whole film, a level of frankness and detail in the destruction of familiar sights that scared audiences at the time—and still resonates in…

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★ 2

  Based loosely on a novel by science fiction writer H. G. Wells, with a screenplay which he also wrote, Things to Come is a stunning visualisation of assumed predictions spanning a period of almost one hundred years, commencing in the year 1940. 

  It's not predisposed to look through rose-coloured glasses at prospects, and as could be expected, violent confrontations are foreseen early on. They persist for several decades before finally giving way to systematic starvation and disease, and director William Cameron Menzies brings the bleak projections to the screen remarkably. 

  It's an intriguing film with incredible sets and is epic in terms of it's mushrooming of ideas which it chews over, primarily dominated by the futility of war. There's some…

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  Review by chavel ★★★

  A sometimes fascinating artifact of the 1930’s idea of futurism. H.G. Wells took some speculative essay writing of his and reshaped it into a screenplay for British production that would be the decades spanning Things to Come. It begins on a world war breakout at Christmas 1936, with lots of shocking death from dropped shell bombs in Everytown, England (Get it: “Everytown”). There seems to be less focus on character than on objective events as an endless war carries on for decades; after development of chemical warfare in the 1960’s, a plague wipes out much of the population. The midsection of the movie, following events of 1970, is made up of trite philosophical debates between war-mongers and peacemakers that is…

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★ 1

  37/100

  Indeed. What it actually predicts is the modern blockbuster, in which everything is subordinate to production design and special effects—magnificent structures populated by declamatory drones. And it's cowardly, too, envisioning a century-long battle between scientific, humanistic progress and various dictators and Luddites without ever even one single time alluding to religion in any way (unless you count the fact that the opening takes place on Christmas). If there's one thing that's not gonna change for centuries, it's people pointing to some imaginary dude in the sky to justify their fear and ignorance. < /soapbox> Anyway, Menzies does what he does best, which is spectacle, but giving guys like Massey and Richardson free rein with dialogue this stilted is a recipe for md'agony.

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★½

  As a movie very dull, as a peek at the last grasps of victorian society anxieties about its inevitable demise, fascinating.

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  Review by Wesley Stenzel ★★★★★ 1

  A stunning display of mind-blowing special effects and gorgeous futurist designs, this century-spanning piece of speculative fiction is one of the few mainstream Western films to prioritize humanity as a collective species instead of a handful of characters. There is no individual protagonist here — instead, the film focuses on human nature via a series of disparate groups and families, finding unexpected optimism in our destructive tendencies. Yes, there’s stiff acting and stilted dialogue that make the project feel like a cheap B-movie, but its epic scale and collectivist spirit make it an unlikely humanist midpoint between Battleship Potemkin and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

  The film, produced three years before the start of WWII, begins on the eve of a potential…

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★

  Man, I think someone forgot to tell HG Wells and William Menzies that the WWII didn't last forever.

  In a allegorical town known as Everytown (subtle, I know), everyone is afraid of the doomsday to happen in any second, and so it does. A battle between the unknown enemies ends in a new sickness that ends with most of the population and by the 60s, the town has become a dystopian city ruled by a mad dictator. But things are about to change...

  Both the bad and good about this film is that it plays like a very extended episode of The Twilight Zone. Some of the concepts are very good, as well as some of the effects. Many of…

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  Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🐝 ★★★★ 1

  Sometimes, when I watch an old film like Things To Come, I wonder if I'm being really patronising with my thoughts towards some aspects of it. I even felt patronising calling it an "old film" just then.

  By this I mean that I looked at so many things in Things To Come with such utter amazement, always partnering this amazement with thoughts like, "Cor, how could they do that back then? Surely that was impossible! They didn't even have computers back then!" I can't help it. Maybe the makers could have regarded this as a complement to their ingenuity, though, I don't know.

  Of course, they got by, on this occasion, on using what they had available and astonishing levels…

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  Review by Anna🍓 ★½ 5

  Shouldn't have stopped playing dress to impress to watch this it was so boring. At least the costumes were cunty so I've got inspo for dress to impress xoxo