disgusting, overrated, pointless

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Another day, another remake – although this one's strictly a new adaptation of the classic John Wyndham novel, which was already filmed once back in the 1960s and made into a miniseries by the BBC in the 1980s. This one's a two-part TV film shown by the BBC at Christmas 2009. I love the novel, so I was looking forward to watching this and hoping against hope that they didn't ruin it.They did. DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS is another example of style over substance, a film where Wyndham's thoughtful prose is tossed aside in favour of people running around with machine guns. It's heavily indebted to 28 DAYS LATER, borrowing many plot points, while at the same time having that glossy look shared by all major BBC drama these days. The Triffids themselves are CGI creations and to be fair the CGI isn't too bad – it's the script that sucks.Never have I seen a film so chock-full of plot holes – it's as if the writer doesn't give a damn, desperate to throw in as much senseless action as possible. As a result, the film becomes repetitive and boring. Here are a few questions I asked myself while watching: If the lights in the sky were a brief phenomenon – unlike in the book – where are all the people who were asleep/on the Underground who wouldn't have been blinded? Why does every character – including kids in a village – have access to a machine gun? What is up with the stupid tribal mask solution that makes no sense whatsoever (or should that be nonsense)?How did Susan follow Bill when he went to trap the male Triffid – are we supposed to believe that she hid in the back of the jeep without him noticing?How did Susan get back in the heavily-guarded room after planting the audio device at the climax (maybe she has Harry Potter's invisibility cloak)? How many times are we to be reminded of this film's environmentally-conscious leanings? How unlikely is it that Jo just happens to be picked up by Bill's dad in his jeep? Why did the screenwriter focus on familiar human drama instead of the actual Triffid story? All these flaws and plot holes combine to make a thoroughly ridiculous movie. The cast is also a mixed bag – Dougray Scott and Joely Richardson are fine as the heroic twosome, but some of the supporting actors are really awful – especially Eddie Izzard's bad guy, who seems to be trying to imitate Gary Oldman in LEON. Jason Priestley, once an American heartthrob, now unrecognisable, has a thankless minor part, and Brian Cox's turn amounts to little more than a cameo, lucky him. All in all, this is the worst Triffids adaptation to date.

The premise of the movie (about first 5 minutes) seemed to be interesting. Then there was totally improbable catastrophe (all people on Earth blinded by Sun including those on night side, in the metro, in the mines, just one guy who sleeps in plane with hat on his eyes and another one who has few layers of bandage is not blinded... huh).Then all strange and extremely implausible things start to happen. Then there are some characters with unlikely motivation start to do bizarre things like guy who tries to arrange military coup in the middle of chaos. Unfortunately ALL characters behave in very absurd ways: They constantly fire obviously useless weapons on plants, shout "STOP SHOUTING! STOP SHOUTING!", try to save obviously dead people and so on. In general they seem to fight among themselves than to take a stand and find some reasonable solution to the plan infestation.This movie is almost completely brain dead and painful to watch. I'm simply not able to survive the second part, the first one was bad enough. The King's The Mist may have some crazy characters too, but overall it is worlds better than this.

As timeless stories go, this one is right up there.When a genetically engineered strain of killer vegetation, Triffids, take advantage of a human population blighted by mass blindness caused by the sight of a comet in the sky, only a handful of sighted survivors remain. Forced to choose between their own continued survival and the plight of the blinded, we follow Bill Mason and Jo Payton as they do battle with both the deadly flora and the cancer within, humanities need for dominance.Whilst the story at the heart is expectedly excellent, the embellishments to suit the modern audience don't quite manage to capture the imagination. There are some bright spots, though. The Triffids themselves are very effectively realised, never seeming silly in any way, a genuine peril in this world of genital bombers and rapidly diminishing oil supplies. Eddie Izzard as the demented, power mad Torrence is the star turn, and Joely Richardson's Jo is decent enough, though the characterisation of Mason here comes across as nothing short of bland.Whilst never reaching the heights of creepiness the early 80's series managed, this is nevertheless a competent, if highly mainstream slice of sci-fi, apocalyptic guff.I enjoyed it, but I doubt I'll be watching it again any time soon.

Not sure if this is a spoiler, but in this remake of John Wyndham's book, the sap of Triffids is a source of energy-rich 'Triff-Oil' which solves the worldwide energy crisis and burns so cleanly it reverses global warming, even though the Triffids are carnivorous mobile plants with deadly stingers. Not a big problem until the world is struck blind and people become easy prey to the triffids. But here's my WTF moment: If Triffid sap is so flammable, why doesn't anybody use a torch on them? Or Napalm from an airplane? There must be at least ONE pilot who wasn't flying when the world went blind. All we ask is a little internal logic.