Released the year after Dr. Who & The Daleks, this is another non-canon outing for one of the most enduring and well-known characters in modern sci-fi.
Peter Cushing returns as Dr. Who, joined once more by young Roberta Tovey (playing Susan), but this time his other two companions are a young woman named Louise (Jill Curzon) and a policeman (Bernard Cribbins) who wanders into the TARDIS after mistaking it for a standard police box. When they all travel to the future they are alarmed to see that the Daleks have invaded Earth. In 2150. Hence the title. The exterminating aliens have destroyed much of England, enslaved many and roboticised many people to help them in their cause, and are making folks dig deeper and deeper down a mineshaft for reasons unknown. Dr. Who knows that they must be stopped. When they meet up with some resistance fighters (including Andrew Keir), they start to formulate a plan.
With Gordon Flemyng back in the director’s chair, and Milton Subotsky back on scripting duties (helped this time by David Whitaker and basing the tale on previous work by terry Nation, once again), this is a simple follow-up to the first big screen outing for the character, allowing fans to spend more time in the company of the Daleks (because, let’s face it, considering the changes made to the central character, these two movies were all about the Daleks).
Cushing is as great as ever, despite once again being asked to play the character as a smarter-than-average grandfather. Oh, what I wouldn’t have given to see him playing the role as it was written for TV, but this still keeps me happy, despite the major deviations from the source material. Cribbins is enjoyable in his role, although the film stops for a moment or two to give him some comedy to work with and it shouldn’t have. Tovey is decent enough, reprising her role, and Curzon is a slight improvement, in my view, over Jennie Linden. She’s not really given that much to do, sadly, and seems to just be there to appeal to teenage viewers. Much the same as Linden was. Keir gives a solid performance, as do the likes of Ray Brooks and Roger Avon.
Fans of Hammer and Amicus will take extra delight in seeing Cushing and Keir onscreen together, and fans of the central characters will enjoy this for what it is, the better of two movies to feature Daleks onscreen (the very first appearance is, arguably, their greatest moment in cinema). Yes, watching these movies requires you to put on the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, but that’s far from the worst sin that a movie can commit.
DIRECTOR: GORDON FLEMYNG
WRITER: MILTON SUBOTSKY, DAVID WHITAKER (BASED ON WORK BY TERRY NATION)
STARS: PETER CUSHING, BERNARD CRIBBINS, RAY BROOKS, ANDREW KEIR, ROBERTA TOVEY, JILL CURZON, ROGER AVON
RUNTIME: 84 MINS APPROX
COUNTRY: UK
Film Rating: 
