bnorthup
03-13-2002, 10:17 AM
The Time Machine (PG-13)
At the Circus
** (Two stars)
Headline: No fresh water spouts from dry Wells
By Brent Northup
When the grandson of H.G. Wells decided to direct a new version of his grandpa’s classic book, “The Time Machine,” a sci-fi fan couldn’t help but be optimistic. Surely, a Wells’ film will respect the spirit of the Wells’ book. Unfortunately, director Simon Wells managed to miss his target, despite having the right genes for the job.
“The Time Machine” starts quite wonderfully. Cinematographer Don McAlpine, one of the finest cameramen in the world, gives the opening scenes a lush, elegant feel. We meet our hero, Alexander Hartdegen, a mathematician who believes that Einstein’s research holds the secret to time travel. Hartdegen is trying to build a time machine based on Einstein’s research.
His task takes on urgency when his fiancée dies during a robbery on the very night he proposes marriage. He jumps in his machine and goes back to the start of the night, intent on protecting her. But at the precise same time, she is killed in a new way. Apparently, when your time is up, it doesn’t matter where you’re standing.
Having solved the riddle of time travel, Hartdegen now decides to solve the greater puzzle – he attempts to defeat the “law” that suggests that the past cannot be altered to create a different future. To accomplish this, Hartdegen sets out for the future where he hopes to find scientists who have patented the key to Einstein’s lock – and opened up a world where a bad day can be erased with a good time machine.
So far, so good. In fact, I was fully engaged at this point. The sad scientist’s love for Emma seemed genuine. And his time machine was fun, in a “retro” sort of way.
But now, alas, the movie goes astray. The trip to the future (some 800,000 years hence) turns out to be nothing more than a visit to a jungle where the good creatures are living in fear of the bad creatures – and children are being kidnapped through holes in the ground. This subplot goes on and on and on until I almost forgot about how the story started. And time travel soon stopped being important. Now it’s just a “Planet of the Apes” clone, in a new setting.
Too bad. The story is ripe for a great movie. The 1960 movie was tolerable, but nobody has yet mined the depths of Wells’ classic book.
That’s enough time spent criticizing the movie that is. Let’s turn our attention to the movie that might have been.
For starters, let’s reflect on why the concept of time travel is so captivating to us. I can think of at least five reasons, all intriguing in their own way:
1) Curiosity about what will happen in the future – we travel to determine whether or not peace ever comes to the Mideast or to sneak a peek at what our children are like a few decades from now.
2) Curiosity about what happened in the past – we slip back onto the grassy knoll in Dallas to see what really happened the day that JFK was assassinated or we slip back into Bethlehem to revisit the birth of Jesus.
3) We travel to escape from the present – we travel in hopes that a new place and time will bring more happiness to us
4) We travel to erase a mistake – the time machine is the ultimate “undo button” that allows us to remove even the worst error from our lives. We can, for example, avoid “the tragic drowning” by reliving that tragic day without taking the family swimming. Voila! The tragedy goes away.
5) We travel to find spiritual forgiveness – the most intriguing reason, in my books, and closely related to number four. We travel in order to renew our soul, after having reached a point where we have sufficiently messed up our life that we need a fresh start.
All of these reasons could generate a great movie. The latter reasons remind us that time travel is closely linked to spiritual health and well being. It’s more than coincidence that the religions of the world are offering us an alternative means to erase mistakes and find forgiveness – a means that does not require jumping in a machine and rocketing away from our current life.
Clearly, the urge to travel in time is, in part, linked to our search for happiness – a search founded on the mistaken premise that by placing ourselves in a new place and time, we will somehow have left our struggles behind. Inevitably, of course, we are bound discover the truth of the Country Western lyric, that no matter where we go, there we are.
I would love to see movies on any and all of these themes. Time travel captivates me on so many levels.
Alas, this particular journey was a dead end. However, I give the movie credit for rejuvenating my imagination. I sat there during “The Time Machine” reinventing the movie that might have been and, in so doing, had a quite enjoyable evening. I’m certain that’s not what Simon Wells had in mind, but he deserves a backhanded thank you, nonetheless.
END
At the Circus
** (Two stars)
Headline: No fresh water spouts from dry Wells
By Brent Northup
When the grandson of H.G. Wells decided to direct a new version of his grandpa’s classic book, “The Time Machine,” a sci-fi fan couldn’t help but be optimistic. Surely, a Wells’ film will respect the spirit of the Wells’ book. Unfortunately, director Simon Wells managed to miss his target, despite having the right genes for the job.
“The Time Machine” starts quite wonderfully. Cinematographer Don McAlpine, one of the finest cameramen in the world, gives the opening scenes a lush, elegant feel. We meet our hero, Alexander Hartdegen, a mathematician who believes that Einstein’s research holds the secret to time travel. Hartdegen is trying to build a time machine based on Einstein’s research.
His task takes on urgency when his fiancée dies during a robbery on the very night he proposes marriage. He jumps in his machine and goes back to the start of the night, intent on protecting her. But at the precise same time, she is killed in a new way. Apparently, when your time is up, it doesn’t matter where you’re standing.
Having solved the riddle of time travel, Hartdegen now decides to solve the greater puzzle – he attempts to defeat the “law” that suggests that the past cannot be altered to create a different future. To accomplish this, Hartdegen sets out for the future where he hopes to find scientists who have patented the key to Einstein’s lock – and opened up a world where a bad day can be erased with a good time machine.
So far, so good. In fact, I was fully engaged at this point. The sad scientist’s love for Emma seemed genuine. And his time machine was fun, in a “retro” sort of way.
But now, alas, the movie goes astray. The trip to the future (some 800,000 years hence) turns out to be nothing more than a visit to a jungle where the good creatures are living in fear of the bad creatures – and children are being kidnapped through holes in the ground. This subplot goes on and on and on until I almost forgot about how the story started. And time travel soon stopped being important. Now it’s just a “Planet of the Apes” clone, in a new setting.
Too bad. The story is ripe for a great movie. The 1960 movie was tolerable, but nobody has yet mined the depths of Wells’ classic book.
That’s enough time spent criticizing the movie that is. Let’s turn our attention to the movie that might have been.
For starters, let’s reflect on why the concept of time travel is so captivating to us. I can think of at least five reasons, all intriguing in their own way:
1) Curiosity about what will happen in the future – we travel to determine whether or not peace ever comes to the Mideast or to sneak a peek at what our children are like a few decades from now.
2) Curiosity about what happened in the past – we slip back onto the grassy knoll in Dallas to see what really happened the day that JFK was assassinated or we slip back into Bethlehem to revisit the birth of Jesus.
3) We travel to escape from the present – we travel in hopes that a new place and time will bring more happiness to us
4) We travel to erase a mistake – the time machine is the ultimate “undo button” that allows us to remove even the worst error from our lives. We can, for example, avoid “the tragic drowning” by reliving that tragic day without taking the family swimming. Voila! The tragedy goes away.
5) We travel to find spiritual forgiveness – the most intriguing reason, in my books, and closely related to number four. We travel in order to renew our soul, after having reached a point where we have sufficiently messed up our life that we need a fresh start.
All of these reasons could generate a great movie. The latter reasons remind us that time travel is closely linked to spiritual health and well being. It’s more than coincidence that the religions of the world are offering us an alternative means to erase mistakes and find forgiveness – a means that does not require jumping in a machine and rocketing away from our current life.
Clearly, the urge to travel in time is, in part, linked to our search for happiness – a search founded on the mistaken premise that by placing ourselves in a new place and time, we will somehow have left our struggles behind. Inevitably, of course, we are bound discover the truth of the Country Western lyric, that no matter where we go, there we are.
I would love to see movies on any and all of these themes. Time travel captivates me on so many levels.
Alas, this particular journey was a dead end. However, I give the movie credit for rejuvenating my imagination. I sat there during “The Time Machine” reinventing the movie that might have been and, in so doing, had a quite enjoyable evening. I’m certain that’s not what Simon Wells had in mind, but he deserves a backhanded thank you, nonetheless.
END