Review: Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150AD

Dr. Who (Peter Cushing) travels to the year 2150 (with his niece, granddaughter, and bumbling cop Bernard Cribbins who accidentally bums a ride) in his time-travelling machine called the TARDIS, and finds that London has been all but demolished, and humans overrun by the dreaded Daleks and their zombified Robomen (created out of some of the human population. Not sure whether being a slave is the better option or being a Roboman!). Looks like Dr. Who and his companions are the next ones for zombification/robo-sizing. But hope exists in a small underground resistance headed by Andrew Keir (a genuinely fine character actor). Will this be enough to overthrow the Daleks and restore order to this chaotic world?

 

There are many, many fans of “Dr. Who” out there. Thousands, if not millions. I’m not even close to being among them. I’m aware of the phenomenon, have seen bits over the years, but I have never seen a full episode. However, I do like some of the actors who have played the character such as Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton (the crazy priest from “The Omen”), and of course the great Peter Cushing who takes on the role in this 1966 sequel to “Dr. Who and the Daleks”, which I have not seen. And after seeing this film, I don’t think I’ll be visiting the earlier film any time soon. I’ve always found “Dr. Who” to be cheap-looking, antiquated and rather juvenile, a hopelessly archaic form of sci-fi entertainment, with its phone booths and robots that look like cheese graters and the like. But surely the series, particularly the more recent incarnations (which seem more upmarket and expensive) can’t possibly be as cheap-looking (even on TV it would look cheap), phony, and out-of-date as this Gordon Flemyng (the flatly directed but well-cast Jim Brown vehicle “The Split”, as well as the previous “Dr. Who” film) film. And that’s a bit of a surprise, because not only does it feature the wonderfully and classy Peter Cushing (who can seemingly class up any film no matter how poor it otherwise is), but the film was produced by Amicus studios, who at the time were second only to Hammer Studios in churning out quality British genre pictures (such as the fun horror anthologies “Asylum” and “From Beyond the Grave”).

 

The “Dr. Who” series just never seems to have matured in terms of technology and writing (Has there been any “Dr. Who” films after this? Hmm, wonder why!), only the more recent spin-off/update “Torchwood” seems to have taken the serious into modern times. This film was made in the 60s (and in colour, the series had only been in B&W up to this point), but it’s so concerned with ideas of robots (sorry fans, but the Daleks are the dumbest, least intimidating sci-fi characters of all-time, and I’m including Gen. Grievous from “Revenge of the Sith” too!), lasers and strange (read: super annoying) beeping sounds, and weirdly altered voices that would’ve been out of touch even by then (yeah, I know I sound like I’m describing “Star Wars”, but the level of technological artistry and entertainment value in those films is without peer). I mean some of those 30s serials like “Flash Gordon” and “Buck Rogers” were probably more sophisticated than this. Compare this film to the first “Star Trek” film, it was pretty mediocre and underwhelming but in terms of technology it was an advancement on the TV series. There was some intelligence and sophistication to it, and subsequent films and TV spin-offs have followed suit. “Dr. Who” never seemed to do that until most recently, and it sure hadn’t become any more sophisticated with this film (including the lame comedy relief from “Carry On” veteran Cribbins). I’ve seen “Godzilla” films with more sophisticated ideas and better miniatures than in this film. And is it me, or did those Robomen/slaves look like lost members of 80s pop band Devo? When a problem comes along you must Exterminate! Exterminate!

 

Though this film is an absolute turkey, I must say that Cushing gives it his best, even though he plays Dr. Who in the same manner as his Dr. Van Helsing or Sherlock Holmes. The funny thing is, he’s perfectly cast as all-three. The screenplay is by Milton Subotsky (who ran Amicus, along with partner Max J. Rosenberg) and David Whitaker, based on an episode of the Terry Nation TV series. For the really, really demanding and deprived, only. It doesn’t even work as twee nostalgia, it’s far too dull and I’d be surprised if most “Dr. Who” fans disagreed with me, to be honest. They certainly didn’t seem too vocal at the time in their support, given the poor box-office business this film did (resulting in plans for a third film being mercifully scrapped).

 

Rating: D-