Purists of the BBC cult programme will doubtless sniff at this cheerfully undemanding little spin-off by Amicus producers Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg. But, aimed squarely at Saturday morning children's cinema audiences, its not without its charm. Not least the paint-box colours (the petrified surface of planet Skaro is lit by a lurid green light) and lava-lamp decor. And some of the planetary landscape mattes are rather magnificent in their comic-strip way.
Alas the weakest link, amazingly, is Peter Cushing as Dr Who. Though the film mainly sticks to writer Terry Nation's original story, the producers understandably had to jettison the television serial's back-story (such as it was in 1965) if it was to appeal to the crucial American market. But here Cushing's Doctor is little more than a doddery old grandfather, with none of the crotchety antagonism of William Hartnell, the role's originator. And the Tardis interior is just a mess of overhanging wires and junkyard cast-offs rather than the wonderfully sterile, futuristic control room of the small-screen.
The Daleks, though larger, are more ungainly and don't have the streamlined menace of the TV ones (perhaps the only monsters on film to actually swivel with sheer pent-up malice). Worst of all, their exterminators just scoosh out rather pathetic white smoke. Was the original x-ray laser effect, turning the TV screen image negative, deemed too scary, even though most of its audience would have thrilled to it at home? There's not a great deal more to commend it. Roy Castle clowns around rather embarrassingly as the young male lead, while Jenny Linden barely gets a line of script as the heroine. All in all, eleven year-old Roberta Tovey walks away with the acting honours.
Alas the weakest link, amazingly, is Peter Cushing as Dr Who. Though the film mainly sticks to writer Terry Nation's original story, the producers understandably had to jettison the television serial's back-story (such as it was in 1965) if it was to appeal to the crucial American market. But here Cushing's Doctor is little more than a doddery old grandfather, with none of the crotchety antagonism of William Hartnell, the role's originator. And the Tardis interior is just a mess of overhanging wires and junkyard cast-offs rather than the wonderfully sterile, futuristic control room of the small-screen.
The Daleks, though larger, are more ungainly and don't have the streamlined menace of the TV ones (perhaps the only monsters on film to actually swivel with sheer pent-up malice). Worst of all, their exterminators just scoosh out rather pathetic white smoke. Was the original x-ray laser effect, turning the TV screen image negative, deemed too scary, even though most of its audience would have thrilled to it at home? There's not a great deal more to commend it. Roy Castle clowns around rather embarrassingly as the young male lead, while Jenny Linden barely gets a line of script as the heroine. All in all, eleven year-old Roberta Tovey walks away with the acting honours.