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 y enthusiasm for time travel movies is unending. Even
after watching Simon Wells’ adaptation of novelist H.G. Wells’ famous novel,
“The Time Machine,” I am still enthusiastic about the genre and look forward
to the next one to come down the pipe. Which is a good thing, since Simon
Wells’ The Time Machine is a very flawed movie and would rank somewhere
between good and atrocious in the annals of time travel movies I’ve seen.
What’s most disappointing about The Time Machine
is just how much it ignores its amazing premise – a 19th century
inventor, seeking to undo the loss of his beloved fiancée, builds a time
machine – and instead decide to turn the proceedings into a slam-bang action
film. Not a good idea.
Guy Pearce, fresh from the exhilaratingly original Memento,
dives back into the big budget studio arena. Pearce is Alexander Hartdegen, an
eccentric professor who can’t cope with the death of his beloved, hence the
building of the time machine. Pearce plays the character well, at least in the
first 40 minutes. His Alexander exudes all the traits of a professor just short
of being labeled “absent-minded.” Alexander is a gearhead in a time before
there were such people. He’s enamored with all things mechanical, which
doesn’t quite fit in with his romantic love interest, Emma (Sienna Guillory).
Movies like The Time Machine, which opens in 19th
century New York, is able to include ironic statements that only a writer like
John Logan (Gladiator),
a man from the 21st century, can provide. There are little gems like
a supporting character calling someone Alexander has been communicating with via
letters “a nutcase working at a patent office in Germany.” That fellow is,
of course, Einstein. There’s also a short but amusing sight gag about a
mechanical toothbrush.
The Time Machine is an effective time travel movie
when it, well, decides to focus on the time traveling. When Alexander realizes
that he’s unable to save his beloved no matter how many times he goes back
into the past, he resolves to “find an answer” to this dilemma by going into
the future. This results in him accidentally being thrust 800,000 years into the
future, where he ends up between the Elois, a peaceful and idyllic race of
people, and the Morlocks, an underground-dwelling race that uses the Elois as a
food source.
The movie’s second half, focusing on the battle between
the Elois and the Morlocks (calling it a “battle” isn’t accurate, since
the Morlocks herd the Elois like scared cattle) is not all that involving.
Everyone knows Alexander will inevitably face off against the Uber-Morlock for
the life of a new love interest, a woman who will replace his beloved Emma, and
hence make his search for an answer irrelevant because he’ll have learned to
care about someone else and “let go of the past” or something along that
line.
The Uber-Morlock is played by Jeremy Irons in heavy white
makeup and some spine prosthetics. Irons shows up with 20 minutes to go, stays
for 10 minutes, and cashes a nice paycheck at the end of his (probably) one
working day. Way to go, Jeremy.
Director Wells and writer John Logan are unable to decide
rather they want to make a thoughtful film about time travel and the
inevitability of death, or a quick, briskly paced “adventure” movie. They
decided on the latter, which is a mistake, because The Time Machine would
have worked best as a thoughtful movie about life and accepting death.
For instance, early on in the film when Alexander goes back
in time and tries to save Emma, only to see her die yet again, we are told this
isn’t Alexander’s first trip back. But of course we are told, and not
shown. This could be bad plotting on the part of Logan, or a lot of
scenes of Alexander’s earlier adventures into the past (and his failed
attempts to save Emma) were left on the editing room floor.
The movie’s big draw for mainstream audiences (as
correctly guessed by the ads) is the 2002 CGI and computer effects, which aids
the filmmakers in giving the film’s time travel aspect some nifty images. When
Alexander travels through time, he enters a glowing sphere where he, and the
machine, is sealed off from the flow of time. This allows him (and us) to see
the outside world as it continues onward in normal time, only in fast-forward. A
spectacular effect involves Earth going through 800,000 years of geological
changes in a few minutes, including morphing mountains, swelling oceans, and the
coming and going of a second Ice Age.
Good effects aside, The Time Machine is a highly
uneven film that refuses to see and exploit its inherent possibilities, and
instead is intent on giving us an adventure film that is, sadly, lacking in
adventure. Sure, the Morlocks are appropriately ugly and nasty, the Eloi’s
city-on-the cliff looks neat, and Alexander’s time machine certainly twinkles
and shines, but what else is there? The answer is not much.
For time travel lovers, at least the first 40 minutes was
highly entertaining, if just a little clumsy in execution. Actually, The Time
Machine reminds me of a souped up episode of “Star
Trek: Voyager,” which
is not saying much for this big budget studio film.
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