Why so much hype?

Best movie of this year hands down!

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Revered in some circles, displeased by others, this movie based on Ray Bradbury, will probably divide the audience. I have to admit I found the whole thing rather a chore because the character of Carl is immediately an asshole, a miser with "skin illustrations", from neck to toes, and if they are called tattoos he gets very angry. I envisioned Steiger was often on the verge of turning into the Incredible Hulk at any moment, the guy's Carl is so bursting at the seams with rage and seething with anger. He has a goal and that is to kill Claire Bloom's skin illustrator. Why you might ask Carl would wish to harm her? While looking to get laid, she desires of him to sit for her and receive the illustrations. What Carl doesn't realize before it is too late is that each illustration becomes alive to those who stare at them long enough. Three tales are brought to life, future events concerning characters played by the three principles, Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom, and Robert Drivas (who, for the most part, looks like a decent, well-tempered, effeminate young man undeserved of Carl's volcanic outbursts). Drivas plays Willie, a man traveling from New York City to California for a possible job in what looks like Depression Era America, in a midwestern type backwoods area with a lake. Drivas is "greeted" (if that is what you call it, more like rudely interrupted) by Carl who seems to be looking for coffee or food…maybe, just companionship, although he has a funny way of treating a fellow hitcher.While talking, Willie begins to envision future tales, one where a married couple, in a muted white home with all the comforts technology could provide, in an equally bland marriage, trying to cope with a rebellious son and daughter who may be planning their demise (their nursery has a holographic mechanism that allows the children to go to fictional places like Africa or the Middle Ages, with an authenticity all too real), the second about a small space crew whose ship has crashed in a place where it always rains and dead tree limbs sprout in all directions as they try to find a functioning "sun dome" that can offer shelter, comfort, and warmth (but Steiger's Colonel is such a brute, commanding them to move forward despite the difficulties harassing their every step, that it leads to perilous, dire consequences), and the third concerns a vision by the Earth's remaining 2000 people, that nothingness would occur after one more day, that they have decided to "put to sleep" their children in order to keep them from experiencing the horror that might result from this (trusting a dream about his nothingness, Steiger agrees with the consensus while Bloom questions such a horrible decision to kill the children despite a dream envisioned by all in attendance).The movie goes back and forth to Carl and Willie with the two addressing the power of Bloom's flesh artistry and what transpires as a result of one blank area of the tortured, tattooed illustrated man's back which can allow those who look a peek into the future proposing a possible fate. I found this movie experience wholly unpleasant, frustrating (the stories and characters just left me cold), and rather ultimately unsatisfying, because Carl (and the characters he portrays) is such a blistering cipher, with a mood and attitude so foul he's impossible to sympathize with, even though his reason for being so angry comes from Bloom's art on his body. That said, the film is photographed well and has bright spots from a technical standpoint. Certain to be a fan favorite for tattooists and those with an interest in body artistry.

Lyrical language, though it may make for unforgettable literature, does not necessarily make for great movies. In the Sixties Ray Bradbury was America's premier fantasist, for excellent and unarguable reasons. All of the familiar adjectives used by his reviewers - lyrical, poetic, haunting, charming and etcetera- were (and are) true. He wrote GREAT fantasies, and we all, all of us who were his fans in the Sixties, we all wanted to see movies made from the stories. We looked forward to The Illustrated Man with huge and pleasurable anticipation. I don't believe that it occurred to any of us that our own, personal visualizations were not necessarily shared by all other readers. And certainly not, it turns out, by film makers.Almost without exception, the screen adaptations of Bradbury's stories failed, to one degree or another. The Illustrated Man is probably the worst of the lot, excepting the dismal Twilight Zone segments. The script is bad, yes, but the design is worse - an ugly and dated "Sci-Fi" Hollywood modernism- unbelievable a decade before this movie was made, and laughable in 1969. Not surprisingly the best segments are those in which Steiger and Bloom are simply allowed to act their characters. And as other reviewers have pointed out, those scenes were hardly Oscar-bait.Even so, it's worth watching- as a failed example. Fahrenheit 451 is just as bad, and even more turgid, if possible. The TV adaptation of The Martian Chronicles is much better, a real attempt at a faithful rendering. But the absolutely best Bradbury adaptation is the Disney film of Something Wicked This Way Comes, and those who dismiss it as a "kid movie" are, I think ignorant of Bradbury's work. It's just terrific.

It seems a lot of people hated this film, which isn't surprising at all. After all, the movie is unique, interesting, visually terrific, the story is a little disjointed, the title character is not a charismatic hero, the dog is kept in a bag, the music score doesn't have any Bon Jovi songs in it, and there is a definite lack of Tom Cruise - or any kind of tomocruisiness or leodecapricity.TIM is definitely not for the average movie-going Joe Schmoe. It is a very stylish take on one of Bradbury's LESSER anthologies. He is a good writer, but his TIM collection of stories is not as well-written as some of his other material. Hence if it's true that Bradbury hates this movie, he should actually be glad they made something out of very little. By far the best movie version of anything he's ever written.Someone also mentions that Rod Serling hated this film. Who cares what Serling liked or hated? He had nothing to do with this film, and besides: all his post early-60s screen efforts were crap anyway.One person even complained that only 3 stories were included in the movie. I guess he would have preferred to have fifteen 4-minute stories instead.Oh yeah... On the message board a person under the name of "viggolicious_x" refers to this as the "worst movie ever". If a person by that name (probably a teeny-bopper in love with 50 years older Viggo Mortensen) says TIM is an awful film then that is the highest recommendation any movie can get, methinks...

I saw this recently and it appeared muddled in its story-telling. There were parts I re-watched, and the ending just didn't deliver. Then I spoke w/ a female friend who knows Bradbury's writing style and she explained sections of the story that made me re-evaluate this film and arrive at the conclusion that this is a worthwhile adaptation. The Illustrated Man's body art tells stories that happened and that are-about-to-happen, hence the ending in which the young male traveler eyes the one non-inked area and foresees his own fate. My favorite sequence is when the Illustrated Man is in the woman's house after she's finished putting art on his body and she is no where in sight so he goes outside and when he turns to re-enter the house ... well, watch it yourself ... the image of what happens to said house is way kewl!