Time Machine

Fun but forgettable
"The Time Machine" is loosely based on H.G. Wells' sci-fi masterpiece, written in 1897. The book was also made into a movie forty years ago [available on DVD at Amazon.com]. Back then, the major studios had decided to cash in on the craze created by independent, low-budget sci-fi and horror films. MGM, for example, produced "The Time Machine" as well as "Forbidden Planet". These pictures - sleeker and glossier than anything the independents could make - used what were, at the time, state-of-the-art special effects. Today's version of the Wells classic utilizes the same tools. While the results are at times spectacular, it lacks a key ingredient - a dash of intelligence - that made the earlier version more memorable.

The time is the very end of the 19th Century. The place is New York. Alexander Hartegen [Guy Pearce] is a brilliant, absent-minded professor of science who is madly in love. When his fiancée dies tragically, he feels somehow responsible. Sequestering himself in...

Glitzier Does Not Mean Better
It may be unfair, but a remake of a hit movie must always be compared to the original. The 1960 original of THE TIME MACHINE was a deserved hit. The 2002 version may be a treat for the eyes, but unfortunately, not for the brain. Part of the problem is that Simon Wells, the great-grandson of H. G. Wells, directed the movie as if he were more entranced with dazzling special effects (and dazzling they are) than with bringing out a believable, fully fleshed series of characters. In 1960, director George Pal wisely kept the focus squarely on the hero's adventures and why he helped the human Eloi. In 2002, Simon Wells clearly loved the image of leaping, loping half-humans that he had seen in previous sci-fi movies. The supporting cast in the age of the time traveler (David Pearce) did not do very much to point out his character. His girlfiend Emma (Sienna Guillory) was in the film only to motivate him to build a time machine to alter the past to avoid her death. One would think that...

Beautiful but empty
Once again, Hollywood underestimates the intelligence of its audience by torturing a socially-conscious novel into an over-hyped, under-cooked, popcorn movie. Do the guys at Dreamworks seriously believe we are so unintelligent that we cannot cope with a decent adaptation? Would we all run screaming from the cinema, demanding our money back because there weren't enough romantic scenes, chase sequences, plot holes, or cortex-splintering special effects? Or maybe their reasoning is more sinister: perhaps a dystopian fantasy about an effete leisure class living off the misery of a race of underlings is simply too close to the actual relationship between Hollywood executives and the audience. But hey, it wasn't all bad, I guess. The time machine itself was beautiful, and the initial trip to 2030 was superbly done. The music wasn't bad, either. And Guy Pearce did a fine job, given what he had to work with. I just wish Hollywood would leave sci-fi novels alone - or have the guts to do them...

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