The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells (2001)

Since this year I was not convinced yet to give a maximum rating to anything I've seen, I started looking in less mainstream areas. Unfortunately it's still not the case. Actually I could say that I'm pretty much as disappointed as for the last entry. The difference is that we're talking about a 3-movie-length miniseries, so theoretically it could be even worse. Still, from "The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells" some "worlds" deserve the time ...

I'm not in the mood to start a bio description for H.G. Wells. A Wikipedia search and it's done. The movie romanticizes quite a lot a part of the life of the guy who was one of the first SciFi authors sold at a large scale ("The Invisible Man", "The War of the Worlds", "The Time Machine"). This is done through six stories adapted after some of his short writings. These are integrated as real events intersecting with the author's live along one of his best friends, later wife = we get some romance discretely integrated between the lines.

It would be useless to start detailing what's being shown. If somebody remembers "The Outer Limits", what we get here is like a short similar series, but with location fixed in late XIXth century England, and with the episodes connected through the narrator who takes more or less active part in them. To continue the comparison, as in "The Outer Limits", the stories vary from good to mediocre. Unfortunately, at least for me, the part that I liked covers the first two tales (light spoiler - maybe also because these touch subjects dealing with "time travel"). What followed was mostly somewhere between boring and eyes rolling. To be fair, in the conditions of seeing the movie split in pieces, at late hours usually, before getting to sleep (for which it actually helped a couple of times).

As production is a TV series, more than 10 years old, so you shouldn't expect much - although for 2001 is not actually bad. Still the VFX are pretty lame and a bit too much close-ups in framing. I'd like to close though with a positive note, and there would be three things to point out. One - the British cast is beyond the smallest negative comment, although I think I barely recognized one actor. Two - a theme from the soundtrack (Stanislas Syrewicz) that I couldn't find (and I don't think it's possible since it's quite short) which, maybe as a personal feeling, gives a very pleasant sentiment of calm being placed usually in the pauses between the stories. Three - if you like short SciFi, and if you had attempts to write some, is quite a motivating series (at least for reading, if not for writing).

Rating: 3 out of 5