... The world of the future is very different to that of today. Mankind has reverted back to a primitive state, occupying cliff side huts and living a subsistence lifestyle. Befriended by the tribe’s teacher, Alexander’s initial feelings of refuge are quickly shattered by the arrival ... Read review
Reinterpreting HG Wells'The Time Machine, one of the most well-loved science fiction ... more
classics both as a book and in its 1960 film incarnation, was always going to risk critical condemnation. Yet despite all the problems experienced in making the film (...
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Reinterpreting HG Wells'The Time Machine, one of the most well-loved science fiction ... more
classics both as a book and in its 1960 film incarnation, was always going to risk critical condemnation. Yet despite all the problems experienced in making the film (...
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Scientist and inventor Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce - Memento) is determined to prove ... more
that time travel is possible. His determination is turned to desperation by a personal tragedy that now drives him to want to change the past.Testing his theories ...
This adaptation of the classic sci-fi adventure tale by H.G. Wells directed by Simon ... more
Wells (the great-grandson of the author) stars Guy Pearce as Alex Hartdegen an absent-minded New York professor preoccupied with what passes for technology at the t...
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Vox Time Machine Delay Pedal - designed by Joe Satriani, 2 delay modes (modern and ... more
vintage), 2 EQ modes (hi-fi & lo-fi), 5800ms delay time range via tap-tempo or 1000ms via delay control, tap tempo control, independent wet and dry stereo outputs. Controls: level, delay range, time, feedback. Requires 9V battery (included) or optional power supply. Dimensions: 143 x 121 x 58mm. Weight: 600g
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BMC Time Machine TT03. Frames - TT. The TT03 has aerodynamically optimized tube sets. Our ... more
time trial machines are in widespread use, wherever fast times in time trials or triathlons are needed. Every BMC bike has a common denominator: the technologies that lie behind our striking ....
A radio adaptation of H G Wells' "The Time Machine" - a thrilling story of an inventor who ... more
travels in time and discovers a nightmarish dystopian future has been adapted several times for TV and film. It includes an introductory sleeve note that recounts the making of radio adaptation, written by producer Jeremy Mortimer.
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Production Year: 2007 - Science Fiction - Director: Francis Lawrence - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Dash Mihok, Will Smith, Salli Richardson, Willow Smith
Advantages: A few nice ideas... Disadvantages: ... but generally a wasted opportunity
...finally decides to pluck up the courage to ask for her hand in marriage. He romantically proposes whilst the pair are walking in Central Park, but his joy very quickly turns to tragedy when the couple are mugged and his fiancée is shot dead. Consumed with grief and guilt, Alexander immerses himself in his work and sets about creating his greatest invention – a time machine, with which he hopes to go back in time and prevent the murder of his ... ...embarks on his journey into the past. He goes back to the fateful day when the couple met in Central Park, and manages to avoid the shooting incident. Nonetheless, despite his best intentions, his fiancée is once again killed, albeit by different means. Alexander decides that he must find the reason for his inability to alter the past and instead travels into the future. He first arrives in the middle of the twenty-first century, where he finds a ... more
In 19th century New York, Alexander Hartgeden is a New York professor, who has an inherent fascination with gadgets and inventions. He is deeply in love with a young woman, and finally decides to pluck up the courage to ask for her hand in marriage. He romantically proposes whilst the pair are walking in Central Park, but his joy very quickly turns to tragedy when the couple are mugged and his fiancée is shot dead. Consumed with grief and guilt, Alexander immerses himself in his work and sets about creating his greatest invention – a time machine, with which he hopes to go back in time and prevent the murder of his beloved.
After years of development, he finally develops a machine, and embarks on his journey into the past. He goes back to the fateful day when the couple met in Central Park, and manages to avoid the shooting incident. Nonetheless, despite his best intentions, his fiancée is once again killed, albeit by different means. Alexander decides that he must find the reason for his inability to alter the past and instead travels into the future. He first arrives in the middle of the twenty-first century, where he finds a computerised, high-tech world. When he is unable to find his answers there, he travels further into the future and finds himself in a state of emergency due to environmental disaster. Narrowly avoiding arrest, he manages to get back into his machine, but is knocked unconscious – and left to travel further and further forward into the future.
When he finally wakes from his unconscious state, he has travelled 800,000 years into the future. The world of the future is very different to that of today. Mankind has reverted back to a primitive state, occupying cliff side huts and living a subsistence lifestyle. Befriended by the tribe’s teacher, Alexander’s initial feelings of refuge are quickly shattered by the arrival of a group of fearsome Mordocks. It seems that man has lost his place at the top of the food chain – and Alexander finds himself torn between his own safety and that of the vulnerable humans he now finds himself alongside. But there are dark secrets beneath the ground……..
The Time Machine is the newest remake of H G Well’s classic novel – this version was in fact directed by his great grandson Simon. It is a fairly imaginative piece that does its best to use some good ideas, but the film lacks any real substance and has a real identity crisis. An interesting fact is that this film is listed in the Internet Movie Database under no fewer than six genres – namely horror, science-fiction, drama, adventure, thriller and action – and I think this is exactly where it goes wrong. The phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none” very quickly springs to mind here.
The fact of the matter is that a good story about time travel is very hard to do convincingly. Although I have never built a time machine personally, the concept of time travel is one that you could get drawn into a very long conversation about. How would it be possible? What would happen if you met yourself in the future? Would it be possible to change the events of the past – and what would be the consequences of doing so? So many questions might be asked, and yet The Time Machine almost arrogantly assumes that the viewer need not know the answer to such questions. Despite the fact that the machine’s inventor lives in what is essentially a fairly primitive era, he manages to construct a perfectly operational machine that successfully transports him hundreds of thousands of years into the future without a hitch. There is no explanation of how this was possible – not even in a Doctor Who kind of way – and the concept of time travel is really just a vehicle to get a historic character thrown into the middle of a futuristic adventure.
Another big problem with this movie is the lead cast. There is something hopelessly wrong with Guy Pearce’s portrayal of Alexander, which gradually becomes worse as his character metamorphoses from mild-mannered inventor to all-action hero. I have neither a strong like nor dislike for Pearce as a character actor, but he seems woefully out of place in this film. For a start, he looks like he needs a good meal, and his gaunt, almost haggard features detract from the traditional look of a lead hero. I couldn’t decide whether his pained expression was entirely deliberate or whether he had just had enough of the script. Either way, it was all very distracting. His accent was completely wrong as well – I couldn’t tell whether he was supposed to be British, American, Australian or a strange hybrid of all three. I found it all very implausible that he would travel so far into the future and suddenly become a bit of a hero. It wasn’t even as if he came from an era when that was expected. This was action for action’s sake – the guy barely even seemed to consider the well being of his beloved time machine once he had popped into the future.
The Time Machine definitely has a bit of an identity crisis. The PG certificate seems a little bit misplaced, purely because some of the scenes are quite brutal. It is worth bearing in mind that the Mordocks are an evolved species of creatures, which ultimately uses the normal human beings as prey. There are therefore some delightful scenes in the Mordocks’ underground lair, where we see little bits of humans left on meat hooks and a very unpleasant character with an exposed spine. By adult standards, it is, of course, fairly tame, but I do wonder whether children would agree. The action scenes of the future are also rather hurried, with a brief climax that seemed as though the makers had simply just got bored with the whole thing. The casting of Samantha Mumba as the girlie heroine of the future had “Get the kids in during half-term!” written all over it, and whatever you read elsewhere, hers is not a particularly accomplished performance. She looks good in her slightly revealing little outfit, but otherwise looks like she has stumbled off the set of Top of the Pops by mistake. Stick to the pop videos Sam – this acting lark isn’t really for you.
In some ways, the fact that the end product is quite poor is rather a shame, because there were some touches to this film that I liked very much. The Time Machine itself looks rather good. As it travels into the past or future, it does so by creating a bubble around itself, and I thought that this worked really well. The 800,000-year journey into the future shows the world literally evolving around the machine, with glacial flows, geological movements and continual changes in the atmosphere. At high speed, these changes flow rapidly into one another and the result is a breath-taking, high-speed journey through the planet’s future evolution. Alexander’s trip into the twenty-first century involves his discovery of a computer-generated librarian, complete with holographic representation and this too is a nice touch. I also quite liked the Mordoks, who had a range of different looks according to their purpose in life. Their movements weren’t flawless, but the fight scenes generally worked quite well, and the creatures made a refreshing change from the double-mouthed bloodsucking creatures that we seem to see so often these days.
As a child’s film, The Time Machine would probably go down fairly well – though please bear in mind my comments about some of the nastier bits. As a film for adults, I suspect that most of you would struggle with this. There is no “meat on the bones” and the whole product is furnished in haste, and with little evident interest. As an addition to the family of Time Machine movies, this one would probably best be filed under “Mediocre at best”.
I only watched The Time Machine a few days ago, I hadn’t actually heard of it before my friend asked if I wanted to watch it with her. Although the viewing was rather spoilt by a bunch of boys who were throwing food around the cinema and shouting through the film, I did still manage to enjoy it. It was a fantastic film, I was so surprised and it defiantly deserved more recognition than it has got. The acting was spot on and the storyline is ... ...based on the novel by HG Wells, another movie before Time Machine was adapted as a TV movie called, Time After Time in 1978. The Time Machine is the newest and most extravagant version so far.
HG Wells Great Grandson, Simon Wells, produced the film although it was originally supposed to be produced by Stephen Spielberg.
The film stars the Irish pop/R’n’B songstress Samantha Mumba, who’s acting is superb. I was very surprised at ...
Honey_Bee 10.06.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Time Machine (DVD)
Advantages: Good special effects Disadvantages: A director going AWOL?!
The Time Machine had many of the ingredients that could have made a good film. A solid basis in HG Wells book (which I haven't read, although I hear is a classic), directed by Wells' great-grandson, at a time when special effects are capable of doing justice to science fiction films, with the lead being played by the fantastic Guy Pearce (helping us all forget Neighbours by creating unforgettable performances in Memento and L.A. Confidential). All ... ...a real disappointment. The (apparently) altered story-line opens with the nervous and nerdy Professor Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce) proposing to his girlfriend Emma at the beginning of the 20th century, only to have her shot a few minutes later when a mugger attempts to prize the newly positioned engagement ring from her finger. Racked by guilt and grief, our Professor spends the next four years proving that time travel is possible, and creating ...
ickkate 18.12.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Time Machine (DVD)
Advantages: Good special effect, good DVD features Disadvantages: Average acting, flaws in story
...In Space and Planet of the Apes spring to mind…what about ‘The Time Machine’ the 2002 remake of the classic 1960 movie that won an Oscar for it’s innovative special effects?
THE STORY
This is an adaptation of HG wells famous sci-fi novel about a Victorian scientist that creates a machine capable of travelling through time. That’s the basic premise of the novels and both films but the similarity ends there neither film really is that faithful to ... ...and give a review of the 2002 film on its own merits.
Alexander Hartdegen is a rather eccentric Victorian physics professor at Columbia University in New York. He has some strange idea about how time and space can be manipulated to allow object to move through time he is even corresponding with a young student in Europe about this, the student is a young Albert Einstein! Although dedicated to his studies he still has time to fall in love with Emma ...
Mauri 05.11.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Time Machine (DVD)
Advantages: The special effects are pretty Disadvantages: Lots of things
H.G. Wells The Time Machine a great novel and one of the pillars from which Science Fiction was founded would be spinning in his grave if he saw this movie. He also would most probably be thinking of disowning his great grand child who is the director of this movie. The film can quite honestly be classified as that bad.
The original Time Machine movie has a certain class to it that makes it a masterpiece at any point in time even though it is dated ... ...this film is missing all the innovation and doing it by the numbers. It is staid dull and missing a certain je ne Sais qua. But anyway on with the plot.
Guy Pearce plays a brilliant young Professor who teaches at a New York University/College(Huh ! ? ! ? !). When we join him in this story he is about to propose to his beloved. However tragedy strikes as he makes his proposal in the form of a mugger and our Professors life is changed forever. 4 Years ...
mortimus 17.10.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Time Machine (DVD)
Advantages: Great first half, fantastic time travel sequences Disadvantages: Disappointing second half, eventually ridiculous
...I have never read the HG Wells novel on which this film is based, and I have seen only five minutes of the 60s cult classic film. This shouldn't make much of a difference to the op, but I do believe it made me judge Simon Well's mixed effort on it's own terms.
CAST
Dr. Alexander Hartdegen GUY PEARCE
Mara SAMANTHA MUMBA
Kalen OMERO MUMBA
Vox NY 114 ORLANDO JONES
David Philby MARK ADDY
Emma SIENNA GUILLORY
Uber-Morlock JEREMY IRONS
The film ... ...reverential feel to it. The quick plot run down is this (I don't think this contains any spoilers- despite being based around a question as you'll see, there are no great revelations):
Alexander Hartdegen, a distracted professor with two great loves, maths and his soon-to-be fiancee Emma suffers a great personal tragedy and builds the eponymous contraption in order to correct it. However he soon finds it's not as easy as he thought, and he embarks ...
ruth_cole 07.06.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Time Machine (DVD)
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Advantages: Great acting, brilliant sci-fi film Disadvantages: Loses the message from the book
TimeMachine
As I'm doing a presentation on time representation for Narrative Theory, I chose to compare the book TimeMachine with the films and then I thought why not review them?
I bought my DVD at HMV for £15.99, which is expensive but I needed it straight away but if you don't you can buy it at Amazon for £4.97 or used for £4.42.
The story
It's based on the book, The TimeMachine written by H.G. Wells. Although, the story varies between the book and the film for example, the narrator in the book is unknown and the narrator in the film is the time traveller himself; most of the plot remains the same.
The story is about a man called George (Rod Taylor) from the 19th century. He builds a timemachine to learn about man's history and his future. As he travels through time, he learns more about the future that he could have ...
Advantages: Just a splendid SCi Fi film. Disadvantages: None really!
and witnesses some very strange creatures , giant cockroaches and strange landscapes. He also travels to the past.......all this though is missing in this adaptation as are other sections. But it's still a most entertaining film though as i say and far far superior to the recent remake. Of particular note are the special FX especially when moving forward in time in his laboratory. We see a mannequin in a shop window change her style of clothes over the passing years as fashions come and go. A candle burn down and flowers open in seconds and the sun and moon race dizzyingly across the night sky with the passing of time. Also the timemachine itself which is a wonderfully realized piece of victoriana , very plushly and intricately designed.
Very high quality widescreen DVD transfer here. Beautifully detailed colors and photography. The extras one ...
Advantages: Interesting to see how the past viewed our future Disadvantages: Effects look rather low budget now
This is an excellent film. If you've seen the Guy Pearce remake and haven't seen this then I seriously suggest you watch it. If you haven't seen the remake then watch this first.
Rod Taylor plays George (HG Wells' middle name!), a Victorian inventor who creates a machine that can travel through time and he wishes to see how man has fared through the ages and to see what he can learn from our future. At first he travels a little forward to just past the 1st world war, then to the 1960's where we are having an atomic war. It's also rather clever how he meets a descendant of his best friend who he thinks is him despite the huge passage of time.
His final big jump is to the future of the Eloi and the Morlocks, where half of man had lived underground and become the cannibal Morlocks and the rest had stayed above ground and became ...
This adaptation of the classic sci-fi adventure tale by H.G. Wells, directed by Simon Wells (the great-grandson of the author), stars Guy Pearce as Alex Hartdegen, an absent-minded New York professor preoccupied with what passes for technology at the turn of the 20th century. However, the one thing that can distract him from his calculations is his love for Emma (Sienna Guillory), his bride-to-be. When tragedy strikes and he loses Emma, Alex uses the time-travelling machine that he's built in secret to change the present by going into the past. When that fails to alter fate, he leaps forward in time, eventually landing 800,000 years in the future, an era where humanity has splintered into two races--the docile Eloi and the ferocious Morlocks. There Alex befriends two of the Eloi (Samantha and Omero Mumba) and attempts to help them resist almost certain death at the hands of the Morlocks. Like Pearce's character, this version of the novel is fascinated with technology and uses a daunting array of special effects. The fast-paced film was apparently not made without incident--Wells reportedly had a nervous breakdown during the shoot and was temporarily replaced by director Gore Verbinski (THE MEXICAN) for some scenes. Regardless of production difficulties, THE TIME MACHINE is an engaging spectacle that's anchored by Pearce and enhanced by the commanding appearance of Jeremy Irons.
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