The Time Machine DVD Synopsis:
The Time Machine is the first live-action film from Simon Wells (the great-grandson of the author) director of animated features such as Prince Of Egypt & Balto, is this adaptation of the classic sci-fi adventure tale by H.G. Wells. The Time Machine stars Guy Pearce as Alex Hartdegen, an absent-minded New York professor preoccupied with what passes for technology at the turn of the 20th century. However, the one thing that can distract him from his calculations is his love for Emma (Sienna Guillory), his bride-to-be. When tragedy strikes and he loses Emma, Alex uses the time travel machine that he's built in secret to change the present by going into the past. When that fails to alter fate, he leaps forward in time, eventually landing 800,000 years in the future, an era where humanity has splintered into two races--the docile Eloi and the ferocious Morlocks (courtesy of Stan Winston's monster shop. There Alex befriends two of the Eloi (Samantha and Omero Mumba) and attempts to help them resist almost certain death at the hands of the Morlocks).

The Time Machine DVD Picture Quality:
Anamorphically framed at 2.35:1, the transfer, as you'd expect from a movie made so recently, is flawless. The picture is good and solid and very high in detail. This is especially true in the segment set in the Brooklyn Bridge ruins (Chapter 11, 48:23) where there is little to no crawl on the stone walls and gravestones. The only downside to these levels of detail are that it highlights, at times, that the effects during The Time Machine could have been a bit more developed and aren't perfect.

The Time Machine DVD Sound:
English & French Dolby Digital 5.1, English & Spanish Dolby Surround. The DD surround is adequate but not as lively as your average action movie but the dialogue is fixed firmly in the centre speaker. The New York sequence, set in 2037, when the moon crumbles with chunks of it raining down destruction on the city is, however, a particularly impressive and powerful set piece and the first real use of the rear surrounds in the film (Chapter 8, 32:57) and then things pick up again towards the last third of the movie, beginning when the Morlocks attack (Chapter 12, 52:05). The 6.1 DTS mix, however, does pick up more effectively on the subtleties in the soundtrack, especially in the opening twenty-five minutes set in 19th Century London.

The Time Machine DVD Extras:
The extras are slightly underwhelming for a brand new movie such as The Time Machine. On first glance they seem to be a pretty solid collection of features, on closer inspection, however, the three featurettes are very short (just over 5 minutes a piece) and are very much just cut and paste promotional pieces. The deleted scene (singular!) is really an extension of the first scene as you see Professor Hartdegen (Pearce) frog marches his students outdoors to demonstrate his solar power experiment much to the chagrin of the principal. It's a fairly redundant scene and it's no surprise it was trimmed back. You get the obligatory trailer(s) and bios, the main extra is the two separate commentary tracks, firstly from Director, Wells & Wayne Wahrman, the film's editor, the second a three-way affair involving Producer, David Valdes, Visual Effects Supervisor Jamie Price & Production Designer Oliver Scholl. The first with Simon West is amiable enough and pretty interesting but it would have been more interesting to have properly tackled the fact that he reportedly had a nervous breakdown during the shoot and was temporarily replaced by director Gore Verbinski (The Mexican) for some scenes. The second running commentary is more scene-specific and very technically interesting if you're into that sort of thing.

The Time Machine DVD OVERALL VERDICT:
Not a remake as such (as only the bare bones of the original story remains) more a re-telling, this could still have been a woeful mess. It could have been Rollerball! But it just works, Ravenous & Memento's Guy Pearce is always watchable, and here, plays the lead role with a suitably engaging conviction and, while Samantha Mumba could have joined the growing ranks of pop stars who make a hash of the transition to the big screen, she, frankly, could have been much, much worse and her performance doesn't offend in the slightest. It was also enjoyable that The Time Machine didn't take itself too seriously, making sly references to both the original source novel and the 1960's, George Pal directed, film version.

I'm still a big fan of the George Pal film but this version of the novel does use a daunting array of digital wizardry (as opposed to the now-dated stop-motion effects of the original), and impressive CGI gives us the awesome spectacle of eons passing by in the blink of an eye. Though whether it was the right decision to ditch the social & political commentary of the original in favour of all-out adventure, to appeal to a younger audience, only time (no pun intended!) will tell. As for the DVD, technically, it's a little under-specified but switch your brain off and just enjoy The Time Machine!.

David Hughes