Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966)
Superior sequel to
Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965), again based on a BBC tv story but this time it all plays out on a much grander scale.
The special effects are on the whole excellent, in particular the Dalek saucer in flight. Yes, look hard enough and you can see the strings, but no matter it still looks natural and realistic, even more so than films bathed in CGI in 2020.
This doesn't have the pacing issues of the first film either. Certainly a six x 25 minute episode tv story is condensed into 84 remade minutes for this film but the fact the story is basically an action epic to begin with means that even if details are missed it still flows beautifully smoothly.
Peter Cushing returns in the role of Dr. Who and is accompanied by Roberta Tovey as Susan (also in the first film) his niece Louise (Jill Curzon) and Bernard Cribbins policeman. Cribbins isn't as goofy as Roy Castle in
Dr. Who and the Daleks thankfully, in fact the film on the whole isn't played for laughs aside from one Roboman meal scene. The ever excellent Andrew Keir adds strong support as a resistance fighter as does snidey Philip Madoc as a black marketeer who meets his just desserts at the hands of the Daleks.
As for the Daleks themselves? Well, they are terrific. Seeing them in the streets, in the Thames?, and in the countryside gives the film a sense of exciting realism and a sequence where Keir and Tovey escape the Daleks by ramming through them with a truck in the London streets is in my opinion a classic of science fiction cinema.