The Time Machine

This was also written for my school paper, hence the regulated journalism style. There's no X-E style rambling here folks.

One of the most useful phrases in the movie critic’s arsenal is “A light piece of (insert genre here) escapism.” It simultaneously writes off the movie as a nothing special, while also excusing him from attacking the movie a complete waste of time. “The Time Machine” (based on the novel by H.G. Well, and directed by his grandson Simon Wells) falls neatly into this category. On the whole, it’s a forgettable experience, but not one without its merits.

I personally have never read the original novel by Wells, but from feedback, it appears that many liberties were taken in the version. Guy Pearce plays Alexander Hartdegen, an absent minded professor at turn of the century New York. When personal tragedy strikes, he spends the next four years trying to build a machine to take him back in time to avert the misfortune. After discovering he cannot change the past, he travels forward in time to discover why he cant. He advertently travels 800,000 years into the future, where earth is now populated by two distinct species, the pastoral Eloi, and the savage Morlocks.

The main draw of this movie of course, is the special effects, which do not disappoint. Not only technically, but athsteticly as well. The imprsessive glass and brass namesake of the movie looks its part very well, looking and operating much like what you might imagine a Victorian time machine to be like. The bamboo lampshades the Eloi live in are impressively exotic, and its recreation of 19^th century New York is spot on.

Unfortunately, as is often the case in these type of movies, the acting and logistics suffer in the process. Pearce is unbelievable as the heroic professor, and his Eloi love interest Mara (Samantha Mumba) is hollow. The gargantuan-eyed Orlando Jones is Vox, a database of all human knowledge and Jeremy Irons, playing the psychic Uber-Morlock, seems in a hurry to finish his scene.