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>> The latest Time Machine is slightly off

by MATTHEW HAYS

What’s not to like about time travel cheese? The original Time Machine (1960) made for great viewing, something which has fermented beautifully over the years. Screenwriters have expanded famously on H.G. Wells’ concepts of time travel theory, from Time after Time to Back to the Future to TV’s Star Trek and—my personal fave—Time Tunnel, the apex of time-travel kitsch.

Here is the first remake of George Pal’s landmarkadaptation of the Wells classic. And notably, the film is made by Simon Wells, the great grandson of H.G. himself. Though I’ve heard some dire things through the grapevine about this movie, it’s not all bad… in fact, there are some good bits, though not enough to make this a bona fide great movie.

The film has our scientist protagonist (played by Aussie Guy Pearce) devastated after the murder of his sweetheart and thus goes about building a time machine. (Incredible what a broken heart will do.) His attempts to foil her untimely demise failing, Pearce continues to bounce about in time. The film seems, for one brief moment, to pose a loftier question about fate and the fact that his girlfriend seems destined to die no matter what, but that’s all soon dropped in favour of some new locales and their digital unfolding.

Certainly, many of these effects are impressive. And Wells, who previously directed the animated feature The Prince of Egypt, doesn’t just use them as eye candy. There’s an excellent Planet of the Apes-esque chase sequence in a future segment, in which panicked humans rush away from ape-like monsters who, upon capturing the humans, disappear into the sand clutching them. As well, when the time machine does its business, we see cities rise up and collapse in seconds, something that’s certainly ooh-aahh inspiring.

But all that can only go so far, and we’re left with a film that needed one more subplot and one less soundtrack, the obtrusive, invasive and generally bombastic score concocted by Klaus Badelt. The latest Time Machine could easily rewind to the pre-production stage for this bit of tinkering. :

The Time Machine opens Friday, March 8