It keeps the barest of the bones of the original story and around the blindness and the plants it builds the various strands of it's own story including political machinations, media spin, eco-terrorism and a quest for fatherly approval. Along the way we learn that you can survive a plane crash by hiding in the toilet with some life jackets, nuns are nuts and that Triffid venom cannot penetrate tiny wooden slats.
It is a mess but it's a mess with a bit of a budget so for the most part it looks quite nice. If it had ditched most of the political and familial faff and focused itself on a story of survival in a destroyed world perhaps it would have been a more enjoyable ride.
Still, I'm a Day of the Triffids fanatic and any version is better than no version so here in all it's dubious glory is (a very lo-fi copy of) the 2009 mini series.
(which you can buy it here -
Day Of The Triffids (Single Disc Edition) - The Complete BBC Series [DVD] [2009]
)
We found this version much better than the version this reviewer raves about! The Howard Keel version is a Hollywood style exaggeration of the tale but the solution being ocean water is not so quite as annoying as are other parts of that version. We bought the five episode remake and found it a bit tedious. But the latest version had a believable use of Triffids, and the jerk who survives the plane crash by hiding in the can with a bunch of inflated life preserves is not so far fetched as to be unbelievable. The villain is a much more acceptable intruder to toss into the tape. He is a liar and a skunk from the first time one encounters him in the story. The slightly cracked nun is a good use of Vanessa Redgrave, whose "Truce" with the Triffids is as unethical and un-Christlike as a warped sister could be. Both my husband and I like this 2 part version of the film. Everything is explained and man's future is not hooeless!
ReplyDeleteThe last word was supposed to be hopeless... the text was too small to notice the error until it was a printed reply!
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