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A Paramount release. Written by Jeff Maguire and George Nolfi; directed by Richard Donner; starring Paul Walker and Frances O'Connor. Released to DVD on April 13, 2004.  There is moment roughly halfway through Timeline where one of the movie's major characters is fatally stabbed. The actor plays the moment very seriously, with a look of surprise and horror on his face as he is being run through with the blade. Watching the character crumpled on the ground, bleeding profusely, I promptly burst out laughing. Everything you need to know to make any kind of judgment about Timeline is contained within this one scene. Taking place in France in 1357, the evil English have just captured a bevy of leading characters--including one named Francois. They are quite interested to learn that Francois is French, given that they are in the midst of battling the French in the Hundred Years' War. After some small talk, the leader of the English says something to Francois in French and then asks him to translate it for the others in the room who don't speak French. Francois mumbles, "I am a spy". The English leader laughs and asks him to translate the phrase again but louder. "I am a spy," Francois says, dutifully translating the Englishman's words verbatim. At this point in time, one of the English soldiers picks up a sword and stabs Francois because he just 'confessed' to being a spy. Practically lifted from a dark Monty Python skit, the scene (and the movie) is made significantly worse by the fact that the actors play the whole thing with incredible intensity and solemness. Steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the poor writing and comical nature of the supposed drama in the project, the actors and filmmakers blundered forth, taking themselves far too seriously for the sheer stupidity of this scene (and the movie), effectively eliciting laughter of the hard-to-come-by Ed Wood variety. Adapted from Michael Crichton's book of the same name (if this was a spot-on adaptation, I would hate to think how bad the book must be), Timeline focuses on a group of archaeological students (Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler) digging in present day France. When their crusty, veteran teacher, Professor Johnston (Billy Connolly), takes off on a new mission, nobody thinks much of it until they find a message from him asking for help, in a room that no one has been in for more than 600 years. After some investigation, it becomes apparent that, while working for the multinational corporation, ITC, Johnston was accidentally sent back in time to the year 1357. Headstrong and stubborn, the group of students decides to follow Johnston back into 1357 in an effort to find and rescue him. And everyone at ITC is just fine with this.  Timeline is beset with several monumentally big problems. The aforementioned seriousness is one of the bigger challenges the project faces, as is the fact that there are professional basketball players whose acting abilities significantly dwarf that of Walker's. The biggest problem Timeline faces though is the fact that it just doesn't make sense. There are few explanations for anything and the explanations that are given are obviously flawed; space constraints restrict me from delving into why the time machine is not anything like the "fax machine" the characters insist calling it. Perhaps director Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon) was hoping that more audience members would take a page from Walker's character when it came time to explaining how the time machine and the paradoxes therein work. Cutting off his friends' protests in the ITC lab, Walker states defiantly, "I don't care about the how's and the why's, I'm going back [to 1357]." Timeline is a horrendously bad movie. Filled with what I will charitably deem faulty logic, terrible performances and scores of unanswered questions, Timeline is an abomination in the time-travel genre. chris neumer yes, it's true: Author Michael Crichton got a doctorate in medicine from Harvard University. |
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