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Wasting Time

Author: villard from United States
30 March 2002
 

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The 2002 version of "The Time Machine" is just the latest in a string of terribly disappointing Hollywood remakes that fall flat on their face despite extravagant special effects.

What a lousy, uninspired bland story, with no imagination. Why so totally rewrite such a wonderful sci-fi classic? Are today's movie audiences too hip for the H.G. Wells writing largely as is? The 1960 George Pal version told a much more endearing story, even with clunky low-budget effects, beach-party looking Eloi, and Morlocks that looked like Smurfs on steroids.

The 2002 version must have H.G Wells turning in his grave:

1. The idea that the time traveler is motivated by the desire to change the past and trapped in a time paradox is an old sci-fi cliché. This totally distracts from the love affair with Mara (what happened to Weena?!) that made the 1960 version so endearing. This sets an unfortunate and distractive tone early on that makes the whole movie dour. If Guy Pearce's character was so brilliant either he or his buddy Einstein would have realized the time paradox dilemma – not have it dawn on him 800,000 yrs in the future – from a Morlock no less, Doh!! What's wrong with time-traveling just for fun & adventure & curiosity -- as embodied in the 1960 version?

2. Only if you saw the first movie would you realize at all what Pearce was doing with the time machine when you first see it. The George Pal film carefully explains the whole weird idea of 'travel' though a 4th dimension.

3. The director goes out of his way to make Pearce's character look geeky, a worn out old stereotype of scientists. In the 1960 version Rod Taylor was a little nerdy too (at least around Weena) but managed to be swashbuckling, playful and charming.

4. Among the key themes of the 60's version -- abandoned in the remake -- is the idea that endless war leads to the bifurcation of humanity. Blowing up the Moon to destroy humanity is pointless -- and doesn't do much for science literacy. For over 4 billion years the Moon has suffered vastly more powerful asteroid impacts, which would make any nuclear device look like a firecracker. Yes, science fiction needs artistic license, but this is just plain dumb and meaningless.

5. Destroying the time machine is stupid too. Apparently our time traveler invented the neutron bomb to power this thing. Blowing up the machine to kill Morlocks is sort of a cop-out 'machina ex machina' Disappointingly, Pearce never comes back to the 1800s to tell his tale to his incredulous friends, a key part of the Wells story with the irony that in a week the time travels goes into the far future and back.

6. Having Morlocks running around in the daytime totally ruins H.G. Wells' wonderfully spooky, ghoulish portrayal of them as shadowy creatures of the night. A true cinematic opportunity lost. Also, Wells depicted the Eloi as frail and childlike. These guys in the movie looked like they could take on Morlocks, if they weren't such big baby wusses.

7. The one smart Morlock – kind of a bleached-out Star Wars Evil Emperor -- had potential, but is so lame and aloof he tells Pearce to take his machine and go home ?! Boy, what a dramatic high point! In the book the Morlocks steal the machine because they are so fascinated by it, and fight to keep it.

8. The goof ball hologram at the N.Y. Public Library is too much. It makes light of the idea of human cannibalism. the 1960 version simply had the "talking rings" that delivered a chillingly somber eulogy for humankind. Derailed evolution is serious stuff.

Its sad the wonderful effects in this movie can never make up for a weary contrived clunker of a script. Save the cost of a ticket & popcorn and go rent the DVD when it comes out (soon no doubt), at least you can fast-forward thought the dull parts, just like our time traveler.

89 out of 172 people found the following review useful:

Simon Wells Spits on his Grandpa's Grave

Author: Sten from Takoma Park, MD
29 July 2003

H.G. Wells is spinning. No doubt about it.

Really, this would have been a decent sci-fi/adventure movie, if it hadn't been based on a classic novel and directed by the author's grandson. I kept hearing about how this would be the definitive version of the novel. What resulted was a pathetic and simpleminded bastardization.

The novel is a great sci-fi story but what a lot of people miss when they read it (probably because they read it when they're very young) is that it's overflowing with social commentary. The Eloi and Morlocks are a satire of the class distinctions of Victorian England, and the overall message of the film is that EVERYTHING DECAYS AND DEGENERATES, a satiric jab at Victorian complacency and their belief that their civilization would last forever. There's no love story, no romance with a beautiful Eloi woman....in the novel, the Eloi are 3-foot-tall childlike beings with a mental capacity not far above that of an animal. The Time Traveler does befriend an Eloi woman but it's clear he thinks of her more like a pet, and anyway she's killed before the novel ends.

This movie first tries to give us a totally stupid backstory as to "why he wants to travel through time." The treacly romance and the Lessons He Must Learn are enough to make film fans vomit.

The journey into the future is punctuated by a future disaster. OK, not bad, but it would have had more punch if we had been allowed to see that mankind just generally degenerates, as in the book. More a reflection of the times, I guess, as the George Pal version had a nuclear war take place.

The general story? Ugh. A total misrepresentation of the novel. The Eloi are too competent and warlike. The Morlocks are too intelligent. The UberMorlock is an embarrassment, and there's no setup. He just shows up in time to be killed. Yawn.

Samantha Mumba does OK. Guy Pearce is one of my favorites but he often seems confused and in pain. (Reportedly he broke a rib while filming this.) He also looks unhealthy and overly thin, as if he had been ill for a long time before making this.

A sad, sorry film version of one of the world's classics. H. G. Wells deserves better....MUCH better.
 

5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:

H. G. Wails

Author: Andrew Jerome from Australia
5 May 2011

You have to stop and wonder how a film that was made 42 years before this one, based on the same book and with less dazzling special effects can be better than this one! The secrets of time travel will have been discovered, indulged in and rejected as boring before I see this spectacular disappointment and colossal waste of...time again. It's a listless, plodding, mumble of a film that gets so bogged down in special effects that it never comes close to capturing the adventurous spirit of the classic H.G. Wells story. The good news is that this journey might span 800,000 years, but it will only suck 90 minutes out of your life.

8 out of 11 people found the following review useful:

homogenized nonsense

Author: cinedream from Los Angeles, Atlanta
29 March 2002

After reading the novel which is about a one hour read, watching this film became a sad disappointing experience. Just as he did in prince of Egypt simon wells somehow managed to direct a script that took away all the drama and mystery out of its source material and turned it into this homogenized nonsense. Now I'm a sucker for cheese and camp but this movie made absolutely no sense. There was no joy in any of the performances or any humor. There were no thrills and that silly bookend with addy's character of filby throwing his hat in the air was the last hackwriting straw. I felt very violated when this movie was over and I still refuse to believe it was only 90 minutes it went on forever. I wondered how the studio and director could have OK'd such a lousy script but then my friend pitched the movie to me exactly as It was and I said wow that sounds great but what happened to the movie.

9 out of 13 people found the following review useful:

H.G. Wells must be turning in his grave

Author: rustik2 from United States
7 April 2008

If you have read the book, this movie is true to just about .. 0 aspects of the book. The only similarities between this movie and the book are that the future humanoids are called Eloi and Morloks, and there is a time machine. That's where it ends.

If you are watching this movie hoping for a faithful representation of the book on the big screen you will definitely be disappointed. I have not seen the 1960s version, but I have no doubt that it could not possibly be worse than this piece of garbage.

**May Contain Spoilers after this**

It is easier to count the number of things that it has in common with the book than the number of discrepancies. Here are some things that I was completely ticked off about:

1) The whole love-affair, driving him to go back into the past - It never happened.

2) He never went to the mid 2000's in the book. That was just made-up for the movie.

3) The Eloi can speak English. (WTF??) 4) The Eloi live on these odd structures that jut from the sides of cliffs overlooking a river. The book described them as living in marble palaces, in a lush, green, lightly hilly area.

5) There is no Sphinx-like structure.

6) There is no green palace. Instead, he re-discovers the museum he saw in the mid-2000s, and all of the electronics are miraculously still working fine after 800,000 some-odd years.

7) Instead of coming to his own conclusions about the societal structure of the future-world, the computer guy from the museum simply explains it all.

8) There is no Weena.

9) The Eloi and the Morloks are dark-skinned, not pale-skinned like they are in the book.

10) The time traveller's impression of the Eloi as being fairly stupid is never evident. They are in fact portrayed as just a tribal people.

The list goes on. There are only a couple of things that actually come close to representing the true story as laid down by H.G. Wells.

If you have read the book, I strongly urge you not to watch this garbage. And if you have not read the book, and you have seen or will soon see this movie, please - read the book. If H.G. Wells were alive today, he would never have let this absolute piece of garbage be published.

10 out of 15 people found the following review useful:

Somebody call an EDITOR!!! Interminable.

Author: Oak Owl from San Francisco Bay Area
28 November 2005

It's a Time Machine all right. It runs in "real time" for 96 minutes but it felt like 96 years. The first 20 minutes were utterly superfluous. Massive amounts of "dead" time throughout. What happened? When will something happen? Who cares? Apparently the film was made on a tight budget, I note for your edification the following: The Morlochs: nothing like saving a little money by reusing the sets and costumes from Lord of the Rings part I, hey? The "scary dude" in charge of controlling the Morlochs... The scariest thing these guys could think of was somebody wearing one of Gene Simmons: (of the band Kiss) old costumes??? Little-known fact: freaks of the future have perfectly manicured nails.

Save your money, save your time. Pass on this one.

21 out of 37 people found the following review useful:

Go read the book people! It's good for your brain.

Author: kate-brender from United States
29 March 2008

Worst. Movie. Ever. I can't believe they had to hire Jeremy Irons to give this piece of crap some credibility - and still failed. Did they think that if they stuck to the plot of the book that their target audience wouldn't be able to figure it out on their own? (probably). "Hey, let's make lots of things explode and give Mina big boobs, and have her speak in an adorably fake broken English. That'll make the morons watch." "But sir, that's not how the book went at all, I think we're mot being faithful to Mr. Wells' message." "F*ck it, we're going to the box office here, never mind some dead author's ideas on human nature. Also, let's add in Orlando Jones with some classic 'Black attitude' as a supporting character, and never mind the interesting conclusion to the book - Guy Pierce has to get some p*ssy at the end."

4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:

What an awful adaptation of a great classic

Author: TheKrimsonKing from United States
28 June 2008

This movie is a disgrace. How can you take one of the greatest science fiction stories of all time and turn it into some kind of half-assed love story. The entire beginning of the movie was not in the H.G. Wells story and didn't need to be. Also the Eloi were done completely wrong. They did build houses or form any kind of real society. They didn't care about each other at all. That was an important part of the story. The way they had formed a world that was without hardship or complex emotions. They were barely even aware of the Morlocks. I don't know why this movie was made the way it was but some stories should be told as they are or left alone.

6 out of 9 people found the following review useful:

Time Wasted

Author: John Frame (johnvframe@yahoo.com) from Brisbane, Australia
26 March 2002

Quite simply a very poor effort compared to the original (with the superior lead performance by fellow Australian Rod Taylor and tastefully kitsch effects).

Guy Pearce is really annoying as a slack-jawed ninny for the first part of the film. But this must have been just what the director wanted - or it would never have made the final cut.

The story line is tragically laughable - a significant part of our preview audience even laughed out loud as a woman was run down by a runaway carriage. I had to agree with them.

Jeremy Irons will be haunted to his grave for accepting his role and most of the audience will be haunted by the thought of the million and one other things they could have been doing with this part of their lives.

The only consolation is that it's comparatively short.

6 out of 9 people found the following review useful:

Don't waste your Money!

Author: Greg from Hartford, CT
22 March 2002

Ok, Basically, this movie was a grave disappointment. The movie lacked any concept of plot or moral. We went in, and simply waited for it to end... there was nothing gained by seeing it. It had a good premise, and a phenomenal budget to spend on special effects, but the movie overall was completely lacking substance. Despite some entertaining action sequences, and of course, the big Hollywood effects, there was nothing keeping me in the story. As shown in the trailer, there is nothing to inspire you to see what happens. It could have been more emotional and it could have been more consistent. The movie is an abomination of the original text, and an overall waste of time.