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• Timeline Reviews!

  Deadly Chakram > December 3rd, 2003, 01:51 PM

  Okay folks! It's that time again when DC goes out to see a film and is so moved, that she writes a review for it. Last night I trekked out in the cold to see Timeline with a friend.
  
  Here goes....
  
  I don't think that a worse job could have been done with this film. Now I love Michael Crichton's book Timeline, which I read for the first time about four years ago or so. But this movie....well, it killed it for me. And to think, I was so excited about seeing this film.
  
  I'll start of by stating a few things that bothered me, though they weren't exactly essential to the plot. Firstly, where were the earpieces that the modern day people were supposed to have? That was, afterall, how the people are supposed to keep in contact with one another. Secondly, where was the joust? One of the scenes I was really looking foward to seeing, and it wasn't there! You see, Chris is supposed to joust three knights before they meet up with Lord Oliver. Next, while the concept of "transcription errors" was mentioned, I thought that it was sorta poorly done and should have been explained as transcription errors from the start to make it clearer to the audience. A minor point, but the underground tunnel was actually supposed to be a river from what I remember, and I also remember something about Oliver wanting to know where it was because of the impending battle.
  
  Granted, the movie started off promising, with the finding of Taub in the desert, though there were some variations from the book, but that was not to be unexpected. Somehow, I expected the whole part about Taub to be left out. However, it may have well been, for the whole two minutes that the director spared for him. I'm never seen such a glossed over story point in all my film watching time.
  
  Now, I'll tackle the pacing of the film, since the Taub thing has been brought up. Let's just say that it was like driving down a road at top speed for a few minutes and then hitting a ten minute traffic light for the next fifteen minutes. What was the director thinking???? There were some great moments in the film that should have gotten more screen time than it did, but other things dragged on for so long, I thought that I might fall asleep. I've never seen a worse directorial choice. Most of the plot seemed too rushed so that they could get to the battle. While the battle is highly important and was one of the things I really wanted to see, this forced the rest of the plot to become so compacted and distorted that I literally wanted to scream out "STOP! Slow down a bit!"
  
  The acting was god-awful, but I blame part of that on the script. I think this film should be nominated for the Chedder award, for the amount of cheese that it contains. There was almost no humor to this movie at all, save for the maybe four lines sporadically places that actually causes a supressed chuckled. Anyway, back to the acting, or lack thereof. For crying out loud people, you've just gone back in time to the 14th century! Could you act maybe just a little excited? It was like the actors had been forced to take the roles and it was a chore toi make the movie. Pretty much no believable emotions came through throughout the duration of the film.
  
  The ending of the film was just as bad as the beginning. Firstly, to step back for a moment, there was no build up of the character of Andre Marak, meaning there was really no justification for his decision at the end. It really was bothersome to see the character base his decision on the fact that there was a girl that he liked. Please people, give the audience some credit and acknowledge that we have brains we'd like to use! Again, there was the overly cliche close to the character of Doniger. And while it was sort of close to the book, the book wraps it up much neater and way more satisfying in the knowledge that the survivors get there revenge. This movie ending provided no of that, and therefore was yawn inducing and very unsatisfying. The very last scene was the only thing that salvaged the ending of the film.
  
  Overall, I left the theatre $10 poorer and throughoughly annoyed that I had just wasted an hour and fifty-six minutes of my life.
  
  Overall grade: C
  
  Survey says: If you still want to see it, wait until it's on HBO and you can see it for free.

• Timeline Reviews!

  Melody > December 3rd, 2003, 07:28 PM

  We seem to have seen two different movies, DC I agree that it's not the best movie ever, but for what the premise was shown to be and the storyline they built on worked for me. The characters were established enough that it did make sense when they did things (even Marek deciding to remain--the getting away on the river nailed the romantic angle between him and Claire, IMO). And I thought the tie-ins from the beginning to the end worked nicely. My grade C+/B-:bg:
  
  Now, I've not read the book but as a friend told me when he was seeing Jurassic Park 2, he said he just forgot about the book once the movie started because it was so off base of what the original storyline was. I think if we're going to keep seeing movies "based" or "adapted" from literature/novels, then we're going to have to accept that some things are going to change; sometimes to only where the basic idea and characters are the same (Disney's Three Musketeers is a great example).

• Timeline Reviews!

  Deadly Chakram > December 3rd, 2003, 09:57 PM

  Ah, but there is a difference Mel. There is taking liberties with a film (Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings, ect) and then there is butchery (Timeline). :bg:
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