Subject: Review: Time Machine, The (2002)

From: Mark R. Leeper <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 19:49:43 -0000

THE TIME MACHINE (2002)
               (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

    CAPSULE: Not a remake.  Not a sequel.  The new film THE 
    TIME MACHINE is a comment and a play on the ideas of the 
    1960 film and on the novel.  The movie seems a little 
    slight and rushed, but it is not at all bad as a short 
    science fiction story.  Guy Pearce was the wrong actor 
    to cast as the Time Traveler, however.  Rating: 6 (0 to 
    10), high +1 (-4 to +4) 

THE TIME MACHINE has already had one reasonably accurate film 
adaptation. George Pal's 1960 version made some modifications of 
the plot of the Wells story, but they were relatively small.  The 
film caught much of the spirit of the book.  Any plans at this 
point to remake THE TIME MACHINE would probably have been a 
mistake.  It would be tough to compete with happy memories of the 
earlier version.  Happily, though few critics seem to have noted 
it, a remake is something that the new film THE TIME MACHINE is 
not.  It does not make any attempt to tell the same story.  In 
fact, there are references in the dialog to both the novel and the 
George Pal film, indicating that it takes place in our world.  It 
is our world that the film assumes is destined to have a future 
much along the lines that Wells predicted.  This sort of thing is 
not uncommon in written science fiction, but rare in a film.  [In 
fact I just recently read THE SPACE MACHINE by Christopher Priest, 
which is not a sequel but plays with ideas from both THE TIME 
MACHINE and WAR OF THE WORLDS.] 

In this new film a late 19th century American scientist, Alexander 
Hartdegen (played by Guy Pearce), suffers a great personal loss by 
chance and devotes four years to inventing a machine that will 
take him back in time to change the past.  He only partially 
succeeds.  To his frustration he finds that he can change the past 
only in minor ways.  In frustration he decides to visit the 
future.  There he finds that future man has made a huge blunder 
destroying civilization as we know it.  Knocked unconscious as he 
is escaping further into the future he overshoots his destination 
and finds himself in 802,701 A.D. and as Wells predicted, humanity 
has split into Eloi and Morlocks.  This film inherits the ideas of 
Wells legitimately.  It is directed by Simon Wells, a great-
grandson of H. G. Wells and who prior to this film has directed 
only animated films like BALTO and PRINCE OF EGYPT. 

Guy Pearce, our Time Traveler, has been in some interesting films 
including LA CONFIDENTIAL, MEMENTO, and THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, 
but he is not the most expressive actor.  After a promising start 
in which he plays the curious scientist to the hit, his face goes 
impassive and he just does not convey much emotion to the viewer.  
In the 1960 film the Time Traveler was played by Rod Taylor who 
was much better at showing his emotions.  Taylor's Time Traveler 
was on an emotional quest: he had the passion to escape to a 
better future free from war.  After the promising start Pearce 
plays his role as coldly intellectual and his quest is to answer a 
technical question: why cannot he change the past?  That is bound 
to be less engaging to an audience.  The viewer never really cares 
a lot about what happens to him. 

The film has several small tributes to its origins.  In the Time 
Traveler's house is a photo of H. G. Wells as a young man.  If one 
looks quick one can catch Alan Young, Philby in the 1960 film, as 
a florist.  The Time Traveler watches the mannequins change in a 
store window as he moves through time much as he did in the 1960 
film. 

The real star of any visual version of THE TIME MACHINE has got to 
be the title device itself. The machine has to be complex enough 
that it looks like it might work but not too complex to be 
assimilated by the eye or too threatening.  An instant Hollywood 
icon was the mechanism created for George Pal and the 1960 version 
with its spinning dish and its antique chair.  [Recommended is the 
documentary on DVD of THE TIME MACHINE that tells how the 1960 
film's machine was created.]  This film obviously borrows from 
that design.  It replaces the one dish with three.  Two dishes are 
behind and above the cockpit, spinning in opposite directions. One 
is in front and below.  The dishes look like Fresnel lighthouse 
lenses.  The antique chair is there much as in the 1960 film as is 
the control panel with the crystal lever.  The new control panel 
has a nice dial display on brass rods looking like something out 
of a century old calculating machine.  The one thing that looks a 
little strange is some steam guages.  Somehow I am not sure the 
world is ready for a steam-powered time machine.  ("I stopped the 
machine at 205,356 AD and got out to stoke the boiler.")  But the 
machine has a sort of 1800s "steampunk" feel. 

Then there are the inhabitants of the future.  Wells described the 
Eloi as fair-skinned.  These Eloi are light brown as if all races 
had blended to one color as well they might over 800 millennia.  
The Morlocks when they attack come up right out of gravel pits, 
grab victims and drag them down into gravel pits.  It is a fairly 
scary image borrowed from the 1956 horror film, THE MOLE PEOPLE.  
I am not sure it made sense in that film and it makes even less 
sense here.  The implication is they are going to an underground 
cavern, but how the Morlocks can get there without the gravel 
spilling into the cavern I cannot imagine.  The chief Morlock 
(called an Uber-Morlock) is played by Jeremy Irons looking like 
Elric of Melnibone. 

I was prepared not to like THE TIME MACHINE and found that if one 
is really interested in time travel stories, this new film is a 
pleasant surprise.  It does not try to replace the original THE 
TIME MACHINE, it instead makes itself a companion piece.  Add TIME 
AFTER TIME and you have a really good science fiction triple 
feature.  I rate the new film 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 
on the -4 to +4 scale. 

Open note to Roger Ebert (non-spoiler): You ask in your review why 
the Time Machine stays in one place rather than at a particular 
set of coordinates in space with the Earth flying away from under 
it.  I had puzzled that one myself, but years ago decided it makes 
sense.  The Time Machine is a physical device that creates a field 
in which funny things happen with time.  Like most matter we see, 
it has been captured by Planet Earth and is carried with it.  It 
is not immovable, it just is not moved relative to the earth.  
People do not move it because it moves through their time too fast 
for them to see.  But the pull of gravity is instantaneous and 
binds it to the earth just the same way it binds us.  In the 1960 
film the machine even moves a little relative to the Earth when 
the traveler hits the brakes too suddenly.  Then the forward 
movement in time gets dissipated into gyroscopic motion in three 
dimensions.  The machine spins around and topples to its side.  A 
plane moves forward in the sky, but it still maintains it momentum 
and travels pretty much with the Earth.  (And thanks, by the way, 
for mentioning me on page 433 of your new book THE GREAT MOVIES.)

                                        Mark R. Leeper
                                        [email-masked]
                                        Copyright 2002 Mark R. Leeper

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X-RAMR-ID: 31273
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 293963
X-RT-TitleID: 1112951
X-RT-AuthorID: 1309
X-RT-RatingText: 6/10