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Movie Review: ”The Time Machine”

“The Time Machine” (USA 2002) **
Directed by Simon Wells

The immense success of the original 1960 version of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine” (directed by George Pal) and films like “War of the Worlds”, “20,000 Leagues under the Sea” and “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” in the 70s and 60s demonstrated audiences’ insatiable appetite for sci-fi travel tales. Though special effects at that time were incomparable to current computer-generated eye candy, George Pal’s film did sweep the special-effects Oscar. Time travel has puzzled the physicists including Einstein who had his own theory on this subject since the beginning of time. It is of no surprise then that many recent successful films, like “Planet of the Apes” and “Star Wars” involved some form of space or time travel.

The latest adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine”, directed by none other than the author’s great grandson, Simon concentrates on the impetus towards the invention and then switches gear to become an action flick. Alex Hartdegen, (played by Guy Pearce of “L.A. Confidential” and “Memento”) is the time traveler, intent on changing the past – his fiancée was accidentally shot in the park. The journey eventually takes him 800,000 years into the future where the earth is inhabited by the Elois and the evil Morlocks. Alex battles the evil Uber-Morlock (Jeremy Irons in a typical villainous role) and saves the day. The filmmakers have the habit of playing with the characters’ names. The original time traveler was nameless and the woman who befriends Alex is now Mara (Dublin singer Samantha Mumba) instead of Weena.

Wells’ film is undoubtedly a handsome looking piece, elegantly shot, often with sweeping crane shots revealing a period setting of early New York complete with elaborate costumes, props and sets. Wells, whose first feature was the animated “The Prince of Egypt”, displays a gift for the effective creation of a different world, whether it be the ancient Land of the Pharaohs or the futuristic land of the Elois and Morlocks. His fondness for detail is apparent from the inventor’s mathematical scribbling on the chalkboard to the intricate components of the time machine. The new machine is a spiffed up version of the one seen in the 1960 original. There is a neat segment set in the year 2030, where Alex meets a computerized hologram called Vox (Orlando Jones), a sort of internet with an attitude.

The trouble with Wells’ film is in the innovation department. For one, “The Time Machine” resembles too closely last year’s “Planet of the Apes”. Pearce’s lines to the Elois, like “How can we do nothing?” or “We need to fight back!” could have easily come from Mark Walberg, spurring the humans to rebel against the apes. Wells’ film treads familiar territory. The filmmakers had decided to remake the original H.G. Wells’ film rather than put a spin to it, concentrating once again on the action, skipping class consciousness, socialism and evolution, strong tenets in H.G. Wells’ novel. As a result, it retains all the original’s mistakes, the most glaring one being the uncomfortable shift in the narrative focus from romance to action-adventure. Though the spirit of scientific discovery and the aspect of time travel still holds the viewer’s interest, the overall effect is empty glossiness.

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