Rent The War of the Worlds: Next Century (1981)

Martians? Hmmm that's stretching it bit, but this films stretches a lot to be fair. - The War of the Worlds: Next Century review by The REAL Film Cricket

The War of the Worlds: Next Century will drag in a few lovers of HG Wells novel (I loved it) and the films made from that source and even the video games, but we have to be honest, as this was a Polish film made in 1981 you have to replace Martians with ‘Soviet Russian Bastards’ because that is what it is.

This is no criticism and there are many US citizens and other around the world who should watch this. Put a group of people in charge, make them more or less immune from consequences and this film is what you get. Writing this on May 13th, 2025, what you see on the screen is not even exaggerated.

There seems to be some unreserved praise for this Polish film from film lovers and although it must have been brave to make the film in the country and the time it was made, so in context you have to understand what you are seeing on the screen, it is not perfect or ‘unbelievably fantastic’.

There is a dedication to Orson Welles at the beginning of the film and it has to be remembered what Welles did with his radio play of the story, what is alleged to have happened. Therefore, what you see happening in front of you asks one big and important question. Is the Martian invasion true or is it a deception to allow authoritarians to move up a level unchallenged? That is the brilliant premise of the film.

Unfortunately the culture I was brought up in, my experience in life, means that acting does not click with me. The late Roman Wilhelmi seems mainly fed-up at most, despite the scales eventually falling from his eyes, and with what happens to his wife you would have thought there might be some genuine anger.

The authoritarians are vile and corrupt but to what end? It is infuriating that they seem to be doing it to just be mean.

In this day and age using small people to be Martians dressing them up a bit strangely and painting them silver is clearly off but at the time of the film’s making, a deceptive government would probably have done just that, if indeed that is what is happening in the story.

The gratuitous and oddly strange sex in the film is out of place, does not drive the story forward and seems almost cut and pasted in – but hey-ho.

So, the look, for 1981, of The War of the Worlds: Next Century is passable, the acting average, but despite any of its faults, the message that it gets across, is especially important.

A message wilfully and ignorantly ignored many times since the film came out – I mean it was banned in Poland for two years on its release.