Timeline Movie Review:


For the better part of three years, I have been eagerly anticipating the film version of the Michael Crichton novel, “Timeline”. Crichton’s paperback gem did for “time travel” what “Jurassic Park” did for paleontologists. It was a smart, slick and clever novel that was in every sense of the word, Crichton. So what happened?

“Superman” and “Lethal Weapon” helmer Richard Donner directs the film adaptation of the sci-fi novel. The film finds Chris Johnston (Paul Walker) searching for his missing father, an archeology professor who was working on a dig in Dordogne Valley, France.

His father’s assistant Andre Marek (Gerard Butler) and his crew team up with the professor’s son to uncover what happened. It leads the team to the dig’s financial backers, the conglomerate ITC. It seems that ITC has uncovered a wormhole in the “space-time” continuum that leads back to 14th century France. ITC sent the professor through the wormhole as an expert but is having difficulty in retrieving him. Now it is up to the son’s team to rescue him. Can they get through the wormhole, rescue the professor and return to our time all in 6 hours? Not likely but they’ll try.

There are a lot of things wrong with “Timeline” and that’s just the beginning. The script-writers have so watered down the plot that it’s hard to understand how some of the events unfold. Then there is the rather oddly fast-paced speed the film barrels along at. The whole front-end of the film is so fast and out of place that we can’t hardly follow who is who especially when there are about 12 characters thrown at us in under 20 minutes.

When the cast eventually arrives in the past the film slows down a bit but the way the 14th Century was conceived felt ever so phony. It was like they teleported back to a film set of a movie being filmed in the 14th Century. Not the actual time period.

The very few things I liked were the performance of Gerard Butler in a leading role. In every project he always brings something heroic to the role. He was the perfect Andre Marek. I also liked the story and premise but not the way it was presented here.

From the opening scene I knew this film was a train-wreck. And I was never proven wrong. It is just amazing how so many things went wrong in so many ways with this adaptation. It was such a smart, original and exciting story. And the filmmakers forgot all those things.

(2 out of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer.

Dean Kish

Reading this as a Michael Crichton novel would be a tad more plausible than watching the movie, because putting these scenes on screen shows how deeply ludicrous it all is. It's about a team of present-day archaeologists--led by the feisty Kate (O'Connor) and the inventive Marek (Butler)--who set off in search of their lost boss, Edward (Connolly).

The problem is that Edward is lost in the 1357 France! Edward's tenacious son Chris (Walker) joins the expedition, as do a few random guys who work for the company that accidentally discovered time travel while testing a souped-up fax machine. But there are numerous problems: the English commander (Sheen) is attacking the French village, a damsel (Friel) needs saving, and chaos reigns back home where their colleague (Embry) and a couple of scientists (Thewlis and Craven) are trying to get them back to the present in one piece. Or near enough.

Somehow that description makes it sound rather exciting, and it is to a certain extent. But the filmmakers go ahead and put scenes on screen even though they look laughably silly ... and this is not a comedy. There are strangely invented rules for everything, such as the sudden fact that they can't return home unless they have 40 feet of clear space around them. And the dialog is hilariously corny ("Do we look like quantum wormhole specialists?").

But there are things to enjoy as well; besides the general so-bad-it's-good atmosphere, some of the acting is quite decent (Butler, O'Connor, Friel) and hysterically bad (Walker as another meathead, Thewlis with the year's second-worst American accent after Michael Caine). And the first-rate cinematography and production values make a good framework for the general barbarism on display--with relentlessly vile English and sympathetically scruffy French, not to mention heroic Scots and stupid Yanks.

Seriously terrible, but it'll be roaring good fun on video.

Rich Cline

In the Dordogne Valley in France, archaeologist Professor Edward Johnston (Connolly) and his team have uncovered the ruins of La Roque castle, a monastery and the village of Castlegard. He is been funded by ITC, who seem to be telling him the exact places to dig. Demanding answers on how they are getting this information, he heads back to the US to get them. After the professor has left, the team unearth the catacombs of the monastery that has been sealed since 1357. Here Andre (Butler) and Kate (O’Connor) discover some documents and a bi-focal lens from a modern pair of glasses, which belong to the professor. Carbon dating of the parchments matches the time but how could the Professor’s handwriting be on it begging for help? His son Chris (Walker) heads to ITC to find out the answer only to discover it is nothing he could ever imagined.

Michael Crichton’s novels can make really good movies but for every Jurassic Park, Rising Sun or Andromeda Strain there is a Congo, Sphere or Disclosure. Timeline has more in common with the latter than his more successful outings.

Now we can’t blame the author himself, in fact the best adaptations of his books are usually screenplays written by him, as with Jurassic Park, Rising Sun and Andromeda Strain. Timeline didn’t have much input from Crichton and you can really tell. This is a real shame as on paper is sounds good. All the elements of a possible hit movie are here. Time travel, medieval battle scenes, damsels in distress, a hit making director and a young cast of up and coming talent. But what we end up with is an overly predictable, miss-mash of a movie that is full of cringe-worthy dialogue and hammy performances.

What the film does is prove what a lot of people already new, Paul Walker cannot act. Yes he looks fine behind the wheel of a car or in an action sequence but anything else and you just think he is a pretty boy whole who struck it lucky with The Fast and the Furious franchise. He is plainly not leading man material, as he just doesn’t seem intelligent enough to even understand the situation never mind act on it.

The rest of the cast don’t fare much better but it is the script that totally wastes their talents. Gerard Butler, Frances O’Connor and David Thewlis are very gifted actors who deserve much better than his. Billy Connolly is the best stand-up comedian is the world but when he tries to act in a dramatic situation, with the exception of Mrs Brown, he just isn’t good enough and just comes across as lost. Michael Sheen does his best with the villain role but doesn’t have enough screen time to build up the character. Anna Friel does nothing much but look beautiful and Ethan Embry is just plain annoying.

What the movie does have going for it is the battle sequence. The elaborate set, which was built to scale and not produced by a computer for a change, is extremely well done with great attention to detail. You have to ask the question however why Hollywood is obsessed with making the English the bad guys and the fact that they always love the French? The battle itself is very intense and the sight of hundreds of arrows flying through the air and the clash of swords is always good to watch. The problem is that some very dubious dialogue and an overly sentimental and predictable ending spoil all the good work that has tried to redeem the film’s failings.

A lot of the blame has to lie with director Richard Donner. The man who brought us hits like Superman, Lethal Weapon and The Omen seems to have lost the plot a little. This is a man that knows how plot and character make a movie but it seems to have eluded him for this production. He handles the action sequences fine but everything else is extremely amateurish by his standards.

Timeline is a wasted opportunity. The time travel element is never truly explained beyond the fact that it is similar to a fax machine, the characters are underdeveloped and the finale is too short and far too overly sentimental. Only the battle scene saves it from been a complete disaster by dragging it kicking and screaming into the decidingly average category.

Star Rating = * *

Jamie Kelwick

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