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TIMELINE (Nov 2003)
Director: Richard Donner.
Writers: Michael Crichton, Jeff
Maguire, George Nolfi.
Starring:
Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Billy Connolly, David Thewlis,
Ethan Embrey, Gerard Butler.
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The
Cesium-Beam Sundial
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Space-Time
Continuum Saved by Surfer Dude & Community Theatre Actress.
by
Jon Dunmore © 21 Jul 2005.
To
call this movie "silly" would be an insult to silly
movies.
TIMELINE makes the execrable indecency of THE CORE look like a scientific masterpiece. With costumes
borrowed from a traveling Renaissance Festival and actors
borrowed from the local community theatre, even the brainless
idiocy of FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY reads like CITIZEN KANE when weighed against this bone-chilling waste of
resources which could have gone towards fueling that political
lie of making hunger a memory in Africa.
From
the modern-day blue-tinted laboratory (replete with grailed
platforms, flat-screen monitors which display nothing but
cack and things that sparkily go "bzzz" when they
explode), to the chain-mailed medieval riders (wielding
unwieldy swords and speaking in modern English accents),
to the populace of 14th-century France (outfitted in clean
rags and milling aimlessly everywhere for atmosphere), every
aspect of this movie simply oozes inauthentic like a Burt
Reynolds hairpiece. The appalling acting doesn't help.
Notably
pathetic in her role is Frances O'Connor, who performed
spectacularly as the troubled mother in A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, yet who has forgotten how to stop "indicating"
in this movie – her every move an overt caricature
of an emotion, like an acting student who has just learned
how to "not look at the camera."
Paul
Walker, who held up well as a supporting actor alongside
the talented Steve Zahn and the delectably sweet Leelee
Sobieski in JOY RIDE, cannot seem to inhabit his
leading man role here with any conviction, as his onscreen
presence is constantly overpowered by any day-player, mule
or piece of rock which accidentally shares the screen with
him.
For Billy Connolly, as Paul Walker's McGuffin father who has to be saved in that past time, I'm sure he'll glean a lot of material for his next stand-up tour.
Written
by Michael Crichton (whose stories have become as hit-and-miss
as Stephen King's when translated to the movie screen),
the plot centers around some boring English-French war in
1347, into the middle of which modern-day archaeologist
Billy Connolly is dropped accidentally, for the sole purpose
of having his archaeology students and shiftless son
(Walker) travel back in time to rescue. Usually,
when this plot device is utilized, the modern-day protagonists
exploit their elevated knowledge of history and technology
to bode them through the adversity of their escape from
the "past." In this piece, that involves time-traveling
amulets which never work – and lots of running. And plenty of unbelievably deplorable acting from Frances
O'Connor.
While
one of the character actors is tripping over his line-read
trying to convince us that he's not talking PURE bullshit
(but merely a watered down version thereof) regarding the
"time-machine" and worm-holes, Walker's character
actually says, "Personally I don't care about the hows
and the whys" – and we realize that neither do
the film-makers. Immediately, all attempts at explanations regarding the machine's logistics, complexity and ingenuity cease and it is no more than a bus depot between time-zones.
To
inspire some shred of dramatic tension (which could not
be culled from the inane characters alone) the machine delivers
Our Heroes back to the Middle Ages (via the process of fallacious
physics) and then promptly blows up, due solely to the WELL-TRAINED
MARINE who went along as supposed protection, but whom we
soon realize was simply a plot-device, whose first act when
stepping out in medieval France was to present himself as
an easy target to a bowman, then teleport back with a grenade
conveniently about to explode. The other Well-Trained
Marine was killed even quicker. Semper fidelis, my
foot!
In
a movie like this, when the protagonists' only means of
escape is destroyed, there is not one shred of doubt that,
by the time the "ticking clock" has reached the
final few seconds, some other specious plot device
will come into play to Bring Them Back Safely. And it does,
due to their whining geek physics pal.
Every
so often we flashback to "the present";
to the destroyed lab where all the character actors ineffectually
bicker over how to reconstruct the time-machine, taking
opposing sides simply to create dramatic tension, rather
than because they really know what they're talking about,
and also to lend gravity to the "ticking clock,"
which we don't really care about once Frances O'Connor takes
the screen again to pain us with more abysmal "acting."
At about the time someone screams, "Night arrows!" the movie becomes unwatchable. Pointless
to describe banal plot contrivances and indescribably vapid
acting performances when the movie is literally glutted
with both. And one of the biggest surprises is – it's
Richard Donner at the helm! This is the director behind THE OMEN, SUPERMAN, LETHAL WEAPON. What drove him to this low state? Did
he really think that the generational drawcard of Paul Walker
would hold up the indolent story and lackluster directing,
not to mention the unmentionably insensate acting of Frances
O'Connor?
Then
there's the French woman who can't hold onto any
particular accent, and who for no discernible reason
disguises the fact that she can speak fluent English
until the laziness of the plot makes it convenient for her
to do so.
Have
I mentioned that Frances O'Connor's acting makes Hayden
Christensen look like Sir Lawrence Olivier?
The
titular "timeline" has nothing at all to do with anything, as these characters in no way seem concerned
about altering history for better or worse. As far as we
can see, they have no stake in anything except transporting
Billy Connolly back to the present, all the while arguing
over their time-amulets and shushing each other, whilst
a silly and lazily-directed war that doesn't concern them
in the least roils around them.
If I failed to mention Frances O'Connor's dung-heap of a performance, I'd like to add that even George Lucas, with his talent for bringing out the absolute non-actor in human beings, could not have fashioned a more stilted, stunted, immature and uninformed line-read.
Time
travel should exist for the sole purpose of being able to
go back and stop this movie from being greenlighted.
Night
Arrows!!
END
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TIMELINE (Nov 2003)
Director: Richard Donner.
Writers: Michael Crichton, Jeff
Maguire, George Nolfi.
Starring:
Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Billy Connolly, David Thewlis,
Ethan Embrey, Gerard Butler.
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