Rating: 
Summary: Excellent-quality fascist propaganda
Review: This is an excellent print of this movie. I thought it was interesting as a product of its time. But the message of the film is disturbing. It's mostly anti-war propaganda. The people in it are almost literally bombed back to the stone age. But then science and social engineering saves the day! Yipee! If you are interested in H. G. Wells or imaginative depictions of the future, then this is the version to watch. If you're interested in a morality tale, a logical plot, or compelling sci-fi, look elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: An exceptional period piece
Review: This movie, made between the two World Wars, preserves a complex and varied view of its time. The movie opens on a holiday, with family scenes, caroling, and the rest. The background, however, is a constant threat of war, blared from the news media. In an uncomfortable foreshadowing of 1984, the aggressor is never identified clearly, even when the bombs start to fall.The next scenes were, I'm sure, as horrific a the director could make them, within the standards of the time. The city, the families in it, and the civilization that it stood for were bombed to the ground and the wreckage gassed. This must have had a special horror at the time. WW-I was still strong in living memory, and the veterans crippled by gas were still alive. But this movie's war went on for decades, long after were no more weapons left to fight it with. The post-war population was slashed by plague - again, something vivid to people who still remembered the deadly Spanish Flu. Society collapsed into village-states, each governed by the biggest bully around. New hope for the world came from pure technological optimism, the belief that scientists and engineers could create a moral society in their Buck Rogers laboratories and factories. Don't get me wrong - it is not possible to create a humane society without the labs and factories. We now know that it takes a lot more, as well. The arrogance, techno-tyrrany, and 'weapons of peace' in that new order seemed natural, even proper in that era. They chill a modern viewer, since we now know that a lab coat isn't a mantle of moral authority. That technological utopia was not perfect. It carried its own inherent vices, the easy life and the sense of entitlement to every comfort imaginable. This movie is a time capsule. It recorded the beliefs and hopes of its age, and plays them back for us 60+ years later. I am boggled by what was then the most advanced thinking; it now seems so naive. We've had a chance to the predictions that came true (mostly, the negative ones) and the predictions that failed miserably in practice (most of the positive ones). The science fiction aspects of this film will seem hopelessly dated to today's effects-junkies. Even the style of acting will seem stilted. No matter, this one is worth watching and re-watching. It makes me wonder which of today's hopes and fears will come true, and how they'll look half a century from now.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredible Film Marred By Poor Print
Review: Two stars for the film print used on this DVD -- but FIVE STARS for the original film itself. The film "Things To Come" has been called cold, distant, intellectually contrived ... but it is truly one of the most remarkable early films, predicting the rise of savior technology from the ashes of terrible world wars. Like "Contact," "Things to Come" explores the Cartesian division between science and faith, exploring the schism between universal technology and provincial tribalism. Its views of the perfect technocracy of 2036 must be viewed in the context of the 1936 film, but it also weirdly echoes today's "information age" progress. It is most unfortunate that this great film is so badly marred in this DVD edition by such a terrible print. Much of the sound is muffled; the brightness of the print pulsates perceptably; and even the famous ending (the last, wordless, mouthed line) is cut because the film print on which it was taken was tattered. Do NOT waste your money on even this inexpensive version. It is a shame that people -- especially young people who may never have seen this masterpiece -- will view this marred version. DVD companies should stop rushing into production the worst of these film prints! and only produce the finest -- "all or nothing, which shall it be?..."
Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: What else can I say? I really tried
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