UBSTUDIOS presents the review of...
Timeline
Time travel has always been a difficult concept to show on film. This doesn't mean you can't make a good movie about time travel like, oh say Back to the Future. Back to the Future actually had a good story and it was very well organized. Timeline, directed by Richard Donner, falls very short of any film concept. Lets take a look at what it had wrong with it via it's story, direction, and most of all...Acting.
The Story
Timeline is based off of a novel by the usually entertaining Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park). I have not yet read the "best selling" novel and I don't plan on it anytime soon. Several students are at an archeological dig in for a medievil find in France. When their leader suddenly dissapears (we hardly ever hear of him again) they figure he must have used this horrible time travel device created by some guy who looks like his face got kicked in (David Thewlis I believe), correction, two guys who look like their faces got kicked in (and Neal McDonough). The device, (I forgot what it was called) sucks you in and contorts your face to look extremely stupid and wham, you are in a different time. Anyway, the group goes back in time and goes on several adventures and misadventures all ending up at one of the stupidest endings ever on film (aside from Cast Away).
The Direction
Richard Donner is a much better director than what he showed here. His most well known series was probably Lethal Weapon. He also did a good job with Radio Flyer. This movie is different however, deffinately his worst. The scenes are very sloppy and lunge from one place to another with no real time to have things happen. The battle scenes are probably the only high point in the movie as the filming is top notch but it just fails after that. Come on Richard Donner, you can do better than this.
The Acting
Egads this part of the film was obviously the worst. I expected much better from each of the actors, of course, what can you expect from a bunch of no names with a shoddy script. The characters even look like they dont want to be there. Paul Walker is a central character. He did a good job in Joyride, and some of his earlier roles were good as well. After Fast and the Furious came out though, it was clear that he wasnt doing so good acting. I guess his agents don't know which movies will most likely suck. Anyhow, in this film he was very stiff and his few dialogue scenes are just hard to watch.
Bottom line:
I expected this film to be much better seeing Richard Donner as the director but I'm not going to blame him solely on it's problems. I blame whoever adapted it from Michael Crichton's book for it's demise. Hell, I bet he even thought it sucked.
If you are a fan of Paul Walker or any of the actors in this movie then go see him ruin himself yet again. Stay out of stupid roles Paul, stick to stuff like Joyride.
Freddie Farz Jr. 1-13-04.