The opening scene in the darkened Kew Gardens hothouse, illuminated only by the meteor shower, gives hope that this might be a half way decent adaptation of John Wyndham's classic novel. However, this early promise is not fulfilled.
The special effects are adequate by the standards of the day and the cast, if not outstanding, is competent. What lets the film down is the unimaginative, lacklustre script, which takes nothing of value from its source material and which offers little for the cast to get their teeth into. And the solution (no pun intended) to the triffid problem is ridiculous.
Strangely, to date there has been only one other attempt to bring this work to the screen - the 1981 television version, which was transmitted in several weekly instalments. If anything this is worse than the film. Whilst keeping much more closely to the book, it is far too long and has a bland cast, wishy-washy characters and poor special effects.
Come on Paul Verhoeven - you could make something pretty decent out of this!
The special effects are adequate by the standards of the day and the cast, if not outstanding, is competent. What lets the film down is the unimaginative, lacklustre script, which takes nothing of value from its source material and which offers little for the cast to get their teeth into. And the solution (no pun intended) to the triffid problem is ridiculous.
Strangely, to date there has been only one other attempt to bring this work to the screen - the 1981 television version, which was transmitted in several weekly instalments. If anything this is worse than the film. Whilst keeping much more closely to the book, it is far too long and has a bland cast, wishy-washy characters and poor special effects.
Come on Paul Verhoeven - you could make something pretty decent out of this!