It has to be said, the recent BBC remake of John Wyndams novel The Day Of The Triffids was much better than I anticipated. I'm not familiar with the source material, and I can barely remember the BBC's own 1980's adaptation (except to say it was a lot slower paced than this).
It's got a strong cast with Dougray Scott doing a solid job in the lead, along with able support coming from Joely Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Preistly (one dimentional are barely seen) and Ewan Bremner. Comediuan Eddie Izzard's got a bit of stick for his bad guy role, but I was quite impressed with his convincing naturistic performance as the manipulative, power hungry Torrance.
Triffids 2009 has got a contemporary vibe. That means a fast pace (for those with ADD), a Zimmer-ish score and some hand held camera work to keep the energy levels up. The effects are good too, split between the 28 Days Later apocalyptic backdrops and the CG triffids themselves, which are wisely kept to a few necessary shots.
This adaptation has retained the social comentary on how humanity has exploited nature for it's resources (fuel) and how nature has struck back by having the very salvation of mankind be carniverous plants. Cool! As like the apocalyptic Romero zombie movies, the focus here isn't on the triffids (it's an ever present background threat) but more on the evils that mankind is willing to inflict on each other to prove a point, to gain power or to force a set of values upon a population.
Good stuff, and one suspects, bloody expensive. Well done BBC.
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