I liked the book.
I’d like to see the movie and have been surprised on how little advertising it is getting.
Does this mean it sucks beyond measure or it just cannot compete with the other bigger movies that are out right now?
It got a ton of advertising before it came out.
I haven’t seen any since then.
You do the math.
Popular opinion says it’s one of the worst movies of the year, maybe one of the worst ever made. Or so you’d think from the reports I’ve read.
Usually, movie adaptations of Crichton’s crappy books are an improvement on the source material. This may be an exception. My girlfriend wants to see it, so if I survive, I’ll come back and report.
I enjoyed the book, and saw the movie last weekend. That was one of my favorite Crichton books, but before Baldwin and others start flaming let me say one thing: I do not pretend that Crichton churns out decent literature. It’s pulp. Pure entertainment. Not thinking books, not deep, not even sound scientific principles. I don’t care. I like B movies and bad television too, so sue me. Right now I’m in the habit of “reading” movies – after I see the movie. I also dip into serious literature as well, so you’ll just have to forgive my penchant for fluff.
That said, the movie, was IMHO, awful. There was no time for any character development at all. In fact, the movie was so rushed, most of the important plot points were either glossed over or completely omitted. Remember when Marek was in the joust? There’s no joust in this movie. That’s just one example, but darn near every single plot point in the book is either so compressed in the movie or just not even there, that the movie is nearly incomprehensible – which is why the reviews are so bad. My friends who hadn’t read the book had to ask me questions about the movie in the parking lot. I had to explain so many things – it could have been a good movie, but alas, it wasn’t. And I was so disappointed, because nobody is ever going to re-make that piece of crap and do the book justice. I’ll never get to see that joust on film.
Just re-read the book, if you liked it, and wait until Timeline comes on TBS – it’s not even worth renting.
It can’t be worse than Beyond Borders.
I remember when I found out they were going to make a movie out of Timeline. I was like, “I hope they do a good job.”
Then I saw the preview…I was like, “This movie has suckfest written all over it.” What does it say if the biggest name in the movie is Paul Walker? He’s awesome, if you have ever seen Joy Ride, but not the type of guy who should get billing before the title of the movie.
It’s a renter.
What the hell is that? That’s the only thing that made me think the movie might be cool when I first spared a few brain cells on thinking about it. No Joust? Pile of crap, that is.
I loved the book, hated the movie.
Like Dogzilla said, it was rushed. Very rushed and only gave time for action sequences, which also weren’t that great.
On rottentomatoes.com, Timeline scores an abysmal 12% – the worst score among the top 50 grossing movies in theaters this past weekend. Choice quotes from some of the reviews on the site:
“No film in recent memory has cried out this much to be mocked.”
“Gives Gigli serious competition for worst film of the year honors.”
“One of the worst plots I’ve ever seen in a time travel story.”
“Timeline may not be the dumbest movie to be released this year. But it’s certainly not for lack of trying.”
So while I haven’t seen it, I’d say it’s probably a miss.
-P
I found it an improvement over the book. It rambled a lot less, and Paul Walker was in it. YMMV.
Books are always better. The reviews I’ve seen thus far have been poor for the movie.
The book was very interesting, as was Prey which I’m sure they’ll turn into some b-movie crappola also. I was more interested in Prey than Timeline, though. The characters were more interesting, however the plot device got a little murky toward the end.
One review I read (Joblo I think) said that Timeline didn’t have fun with time travel, which is the thing that makes time travel so interesting.
One issue in the book that I thought interesting was Crichton’s point about being unable to change the future, because when you really are in the moment of time (like say 1940) and you want to do something specific (like kill Hitler), it is as hard as it would be to do something right now (like go kill North Korea’s leader).
I disagree with that because when you go back in the past you have the advantage of knowing when and where someone will be.
Pros:
Excellent costumes
Excellent battles/strategy/filming
Cons:
Terrible, unsympathetic characters
horrible caricatures of real people
stupid characters (they bug the shit out of me)
bad acting (wooden or over the top)
frankly, not very attractive actors (if that matters to you)
silly plot points
On the whole, not that great. kids loved it though.
One of the worst films I have ever seen. I love time travel related discussions, films, and books. I love the ethical and scientific questions time travel raises. The time travel in this movie was so nonsensical I was entirely unable to suspend my disbelief. Maybe since I’ve spent so much time comtemplating these things my expectations are a little high. Even so, I tried to force myself to forget about the setup making absolutely no sense and just enjoy a bunch of modernites running around in the past. But this was no “Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”.
When I was a kid my grandfather gave me a colllection of leather bound Mark Twain books. I remember how much I loved the way he dealt with all of the cool things a man with some technical knowledge could do in the unenlightened past. What made that story great for me was that time travel allowed us to see how primitive populations would react to modern knowledge. “Timeline” had one instance of this type of thing: Greek Fire. So the one technology that they utilize is one that nobody actually knows the formula for. Jeesh. Other than that the whole thing was just an excuse to have a bunch of chase scenes and sword fights. The scale felt less than epic to say the least, and the smartest thing these “scientists” could come up with was an ability to kick through poorly made walls. Not entertaining at all. It sucked as a time travel movie, it sucked as a swordfighting movie, it sucked as a love story, it sucked as a historical film. Everything they tried to do missed the mark by a longshot.
I hate to do this, but I can’t resist. The movie blows so it’s kind of silly to nitpick, but here are some of the problems I had with the premise:
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The wormhole was locked to one time and space. So how come when they go back they didn’t see the 50 cameras recording the sky that they sent back? How come they all jump back to a different time if the wormhole is locked to that “one time and place”?
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The company didn’t seem to be afraid of changing the future. The problem with time travel is that you just may wipe yourself out of the picture if you fuck up. Sending people back who kill other people is bound to alter the future of humanity.
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So let’s ignore the stupidity of haphazardly messing with the past for a minute. Once the company decides to send some people back, and those people start coming back dead or not coming back at all, why the hell would you send an old archaeologist back in time alone? WTF? To “discover why we can only get to this one time and space”? Wouldn’t a fucking physicist make more sense?
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So you lose a bunch of people in a secret project that has the potential to destroy/reshape human history, and so you think sending a bunch of diggers back in period gear is going to accomplish what exactly?
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40 feet of clearance? Maybe you should have told them how to use those damn markers before you lept through time. The idiot with the grenade pressed his marker in the middle of the damn woods! They all could have pressed their markers exactly where you were telling them they couldn’t! 40 feet of clearance my ass.
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The push that killed. I know scientists aren’t always the strongest guys, but a shove that turns into a fatal head wound would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic to have actually seen executed.
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What good did letting the other kid stay in the magic mirror room do you? He got in your face every time you let him. Get him in some lockdown somewhere for christ sake!
There is more, and I suppose all of these things could be explained, but I refuse to be an apologetic this time. This movie simply blows. If you’d like to see some apologetics and explanations for some GOOD time travel flicks check out the detailed analysis on this guy’s web page. Fun stuff.
DaLovin’ Dj
I saw it. I thought it was better than the Hulk which I hated. But that doesn’t really say much now does it? The movie is a brain vacation that I didn’t think took itself too seriously. It is worth seeing at a matinee but I wouldn’t want to pay full price for it. It isn’t as bad as most of the reviews are saying. It is just a pretty typical action flick with a bunch of asswipe characters.
We saw the trailer at a movie last weekend and it blew wrinkled cheese. My wife and I looked at each other and said “Well, I think we can skip that one.” Judging by the comments here I think we’ll stick with that sentiment.