Ancestor-defilement at its worst
Added 9/16/2009
I would never have re-watched this film if not for a discussion series on Wells I was hosting but....the sacrifices we make. Simon Wells' film has even less to do with his great-grandfather's novel than the 1960 version, in fact changing the whole motivation of the main character so that he can even more readily dispense with any of the philosophizing and social theorizing that has helped to keep the novel still relevant and interesting today.
In this film, the setting has been moved from London to New York though it's still the Victorian '90s. Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce) is a physics professor about to ask for young Emma's (Sienna Guillory) hand in marriage when she is killed by a mugger. In grief, he sets about inventing a time machine so that he can go back and save her. Wouldn't you? Four years later he's ready, but he quickly finds out that he can't change the past, as that would keep him from building the machine and that would be a paradox. Of course, the paradox of his machine appearing 4 years before it was built in his laboratory or the possibility of him running into himself are never dealt with at all, and this sets up the bad action/thriller pattern in place for the rest of the film: throw logic out the window and when something needs to happen just do it and hope the audience won't notice.
He quickly decides to go off into the future. No real reason why -- no discussions of mankind becoming noble and true, as there was in the novel -- nope, he just wants to get out of Dodge apparently. After a longish stop in 2030 where he meets a holographic librarian (Orlando Jones) and somehow glosses over the fact that he apparently died in 1903 - the year he left - and a short one in 2037 as he witnesses the moon break up (cue cool digital effects) he is knocked unconscious on his machine and stays in a daze while the world changes around him, until finally awakening in the year 802,701. Given that 36 minutes have passed by now out of the under 85 (leaving off end credits), you know the action's going to have to come fast and furious and the strangeness and wonder - that still excite this lover of the novel - are going to be in short supply.
Suffice it to say that he quickly meets the Eloi, the surface people, led (more or less) by Mara (Samantha Mumba) who is the only adult in the tribe to speak English which is learned by all of them as kids but forgotten by most; she's the teacher though and of course remembers it, can speak intelligibly and is able to lead Hartdegen eventually to the ruins of the library where, miraculously, the electronic librarian still works. But wait, there's a cog in the machinery! Alongside the wonderfully mixed-race Eloi (the sole interesting touch in the film) there's a race of dead-white monstrous super-ape-like thingies, the Morlocks, who are faster, stronger, and like to eat Eloi-flesh. The Eloi of course just accept that their old, feeble, and sometimes others just get taken away - despite being reasonably smart and sophisticated in this version (in the novel and the 1960 film the Eloi are quite feeble and it's not at all surprising that they can't or won't fight back). In short order Mara is captured and our hero has to venture down below where he meets the supreme Morlock, an idiotic conception who can read minds, is super-strong and controls the other Morlocks but who of course gets bested rather quickly by the monkey-faced Pearce/Hartdegen. He's played by Jeremy Irons who I will say seems to enjoy these kinds of cheesy things, at least he's having fun making his big paycheck and probably knows it's crap.
And here comes the best/worst part: after dispatching the leader by moving his machine forward in time while super-Morlock is hanging on outside of the machine's "sphere of safety" (my words, none of this is ever explained) and aging the Morlock to death in a few seconds, the time traveler comes back, frees Mara, and sets the machine to blow up, which it quickly does, turning all of the Morlocks underground to dust just as the protagonists reach the surface and safety. So, uh, he saves the day by basically blowing up his machine despite not, uh, really possibly knowing what the consequences would be. This, like virtually the whole of the rest of the film, is just thrown at us with no explanation, and now our hero is presumably left to start a new world with the (of course) beautiful and intelligent Mara, having in a few days forgotten all about his past.
Pearce is awful, looking like an ugly sad puppy through most of the film and never being remotely convincing as a man of science; Mumba is nice to look at but that's about it. Some of the art direction and sets are kind of cool, but in a very self-conscious way: look, isn't this awesome! Like the Eloi village, a bunch of weird shell-shaped structures on a cliff face that really don't seem feasible or likely. Not that much of anything in the film as a whole seems feasible or likely, for that matter. It's just, rush ahead, and hope nobody notices how stupid it all is. Well, I did.
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Wow! Empty Case!
Added 9/3/2009
Wow ... I bought this movie from Amazon last year and I didn't open it till just now.
And when I opened it. My reaction was "wow". The case was empty. There was no DVD inside. And the package was new, unopened, completely wrapped, sticker and all ... Just no DVD inside. lol How funny is that?! All I could do is laugh.
And I can't return it either, because I'm well past the 30 day return policy.
I got Punk'D!
hahaha
Good Movie though. This 1 star review is for the rip off.
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I Actually Liked this Movie
Added 8/2/2009
Yes, Pal's version is a classic and you can't get a more rugged heroic type than a young Rod Taylor. But I actually like this movie. It has heart. Pierce's character is driven by more than a quest for science it is emotionally personal. Nice effects and a good action film. It isn't a classic, true. It's a popcorn picture. Sometimes people take these sort of things way too seriously. It's science fiction. There is NOTHING in science fiction literature that can stand alongside the great works of all time. So check your disbelief at the door and you'll be entertained.
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Improves upon the orginal...
Added 7/31/2009
I might be in the minority but I must say that this movie has been very unfairly thrashed by critics and viewers alike. Having seen both the orginal and this incarnation I will say this version improves upon the orginal and is much better in all aspects except maybe the american accent of Guy Pearce in a victorian setting.
The orginal felt like a ordinary sci-fi movie in which the main character decides to make a time machine and hops into it to go see the future. In this version the reasoning appears to be lot more mature aka the refusal to let-go the death of his fiance and hence use his time machine invention to prevent her from dying whether it means to go back in time to fix things or travelling to as far in the future as possible to learn how to prevent her from dying. Combine this with some really state-of-the art FX (that holds good even today), philosphical underpinnings, some nice action scenes and decent acting by the cast succeeds in making this movie into a great modern day adaption of H.G Wells orginal Time machine novel.
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The movie's great came in just in time no scratches of any kind nothing more or less.
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