A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: The Time Machine (2002)

Date Viewed: 3/31/02

Details:

Guy Pearce (Hartdegen)

Samantha Mumba (Mara)

Jeremy Irons

Orlando Jones

Mark Addy (Philby)

Director: Simon Wells

Score: 1/2

The Review: The novel was published in 1895 (indeed, it launched Wells' career). The first film version by George Pal was released in 1960 (indeed, one of the first handful of films I remember seeing in the theatre). Several rewrites or para-writes have found their way into literature (James Van Pelt's short story "What Weena Knew" from Analog, April 2001) or film (the 1979 Time after Time, with Malcolm McDowell as Wells).

This most recent version carries the Wells title and some of its plot elements -- including an intricate Georgian mechanical artifact with lots of motion and light-effects -- but the shaping of the plot has been substantially transmogrified, and the geography moved from the valley of the Thames across the Atlantic to the valley of the Hudson. The narrative thrust has changed (indeed, the character names have been changed to protect the innocent), but the gadget has been retained: such is the way our minds work. The light-panicked Morlocks have given way to daylight-insensitive creatures from Stan Winston that recombine our mythological fears -- trolls, gollums, ogres, ghouls: beings with near supernatural strength and agility. The soft and pliant non-swimming "little people" (Eloi) have given way to a chasm-wall dwelling and water-navigating culture with some (unbelievable) residual verbal skills in American English (see below), who put up quite a battle when their culling by the Morlocks begins. But once you get over these (perhaps grating) differences from the (hallowed) original, it is a reasonable time travel plot. In keeping with contemporary action adventures, there must be an explosive climax, something never imagined by Wells or by the current theoretical physics community.

The visual effects of time passage and its geological consequences -- e.g. the erosion of the canyons surrounding Manhattan -- are attractive, even if they are off by at least one order of magnitude.

The science underlying the catastrophe shown to befall the Earth (again, different from the Wells vision), and its visualization -- particular an issue of fantastic orbital stability -- is of high bogosity. Although, maybe I'm just not stretching my mind far enough. My thoughts on evolution are similarly stretched by both this film and Wells' original version of the consequence of >750,000 years on the human race.

The incredible persistence of the New York Public Library and its avatar (Orlando Jones), for all its fantasy and miracle of materials engineering, carries a grand whimsy, and still brings a smile to my face. (Such persistence of knowledge might bring cheers from librarians globally!) This is a high-tech updating of the spinning rings in the earlier Pal production (which were clever in themselves and intriguingly low-tech in appearance; but I don't remember if they were in the original novel). However (curmudgeon that I am), the oldest known "human" artifacts (a few chipped stones) rival the ages and time-spans being described here, and are decidedly less complex. Indeed, there is a thread in the literature (Benford's Deep Time, and Brand's Clock of the Long Now) -- a thread I find convincing -- that strongly promotes the idea that even a mere 5-10,000 years will wipe out all recognizable extant human artifacts (animal, vegetable or mineral), provided they are not reconstructed. Grumble, grumble.

A cast of newcomers and relative unknowns was enlisted, although the "uber-Morlock" (an unrecognizable Jeremy Irons) reminded me strongly of David Bowie from Labyrinth, on a very bad hair day.

A curious re-casting of the novel; not unwatchable.

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