Quatermass 2 (1957)

"This is the food, and it burns..."

I understand this is the first ever time a sequel was demarcated with the number "2" in the title?

It's interesting seeing this so shortly after its TV predecessor, as I was unable to do with the last film for obvious reasons; it all seems so rushed and fast paced. So many characters don't appear. The ending is more rushed than anything. No one goes into space. And Sid James is playing Roger Delgado. That's weird.

Add to that the fact that Brian Donlevy isn't at all likeable and you have a film that seems to be treading water and is disturbingly lacking in charm. Yes, it's in colour, it's often on location and it's all so much more expensive, but the sense of scale is so much less. There's only a vague sense of where the meteorites come from and the end- just firing a rocket- comes as a sudden deus ex machina. And don't get me started on all those Cockney natives of Cumbria.

Something of a damp squib, then, although I'm left wondering if I'd have liked it more if the TV series hadn't have survived.