The Quatermass Experiment

UK 2005
produced by
Bill Boyes, Richard Fell (executive) for BBC
directed by Sam Miller
starring Jason Flemyng, Adrian Dunbar, Mark Gatiss, David Tennant, Indira Varma, Andrew Tiernan, Adrian Bower, Isla Blair, Paul Broughton, Stephen Boxer, Matthew Flynn, Carsten Hayes, Jane Hill, Tracy O'Flaherty, Greg Sheffield, Andy de la Tour, Kerry Godliman, Robert Horwell, Suzan Sylbester, Lucy Evans, Alex Robertson, Richard Huw, Andrew Scott, John Kirk
screenplay by Richard Fell, adapted from the original screenplay by Nigel Kneale, created by Nigel Kneale, music by Tim Atack, special effects by Nick Rideout/Elements Special Effects

TV-show
Quatermass, BBC's Quatermass

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Professor Quatermass (Jason Flemyng) has sent three men into outer space on the first privately financed British spaceflight, but oddly enough, only one of them, Caroon (Andrew Tiernan), returns, and even more oddly, he seems to combine characteristics of all three men ... and of something else.

As Quatermass, together with Doctor Briscoe (David Tennant), detective Lomax (Adrian Dunbar) and his own rebellious right-hand man Paterson (Mark Gatiss), still tries to figure out what's going on, Caroon, who is now clearly mutating into whatever-it-is, escapes Quatermass's lab and terrorizes half of London. Ultimately though he can be cornered in a warehouse, and while the army wants to blow the place up, Quatermass decides to go face-to-face with the creature that once was Caroon (and possibly hiw co-astronauts as well) and persuade Caroon, who's still in there somewhere, to fight what has to be an alien parasite. Utlimately, Quatermass succeeds, too ...

A remake of the famed BBC-serial The Quatermass Experiment from 1953, this one was recorded live, just like its predecessor - yet the new 90+ minutes TV movie features none of the excitement of the miniseries of old, mainly it's just characters talking and waiting for something to happen ... yet very little does happen, the mutant from space does little more than kill a few fish (off-screen) and wreck a chemist's place. The rest of the film is filled with a busload of unnecessary subplots that were necessary to allow the actors to get from one set to the next (remember, the whole thing was broadcast live), until everything culminates in a climax that's a big letdown - it's just a long monologue by Jason Flemyng that might be well-acted, but it's terribly scripted. And speaking of Jason Flemyng in the lead: He does give proof that he's a capable actor - but he simply isn't Quatermass, he's much too handsome, too tall, too heroic to be the ruthless, self-absorbed and slightly bitter professor of the original (and its sequels and remakes on the small and big screen).

In all, the new Quatermass Experiment proves one thing above all else: While television technology might have improved vastly in the last 50 years, that doesn't necessarily mean we get better programs, now does it?

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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