Timeline

Movie Name: Timeline
Year of Release: 2003
Director: Richard Donner
Starring: Paul Walker, Gerard Butler, Frances O'Connor, Michael Sheen, Lambert Wilson, Billy Connolly, Ethan Embry, Anna Friel, David Thewlis, Matt Craven, Marton Csokas, Neal McDonough, Rossif Sutherland, Steve Kahan, David La Haye
Genre: Action, Adventure
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 3
Watch it on Amazon

Synopsis and Review

Director Richard Donner started the new millennium with "Timeline", following the successful fourth installment of his "Lethal Weapon" franchise. The film is an adaption of the novel with the same name by famed author/filmmaker Michael Crichton, with the script coming from Jeff Maguire (known for "In the Line of Fire" directed by Wolfgang Petersen) and George Nolfi (who went on to co-write "The Bourne Ultimatum" directed by Paul Greengrass). The film follows a series of characters who are involved in an archeological study in France. Those characters include Professor Edward Johnston, Scottish archeologist André Marek, Kate Erickson, Josh Sten, François Dontelle, and Johnston's son, Chris. When they unearth an unusual finding, Professor Johnston travels to the American headquarters of his sponsor in order to enquire if the site has been tampered. The remaining team also uncovers at the same site, bifocals lens belonging to the Professor, and a note asking for help, all this from centuries ago. They also go back to the headquarters of their financier where they're introduced to a project they've been working on regarding teleportation. Turns out they've managed to create a wormhole to 1357, and the Professor alongside a small group went through it to investigate the past. That group, including the Professor, did not return. The archeologists volunteer to go back in order to rescue the professor, alongside a few security professionals employed by the organization. However the minute they get there things quickly go awry, since they're in the middle of an hostilities field, with the French battling the British. One of the team members trying to escape an attack, goes back through the wormhole, and detonates a grenade, which shatters most of the teleportation device. The group that is stuck in the past has to quickly figure out where the Professor is located, and leave without disrupting the timeline any further.

Unlike the H.G. Wells classic "The Time Machine", "Timeline" chooses to focus its attention on a very specific set of events taking place in the 14th century, particularly a battle between the French and the British. Also and unlike Mr. Wells' classic, it centers its narrative around a series of characters, all of whom are united by their love and devotion to the Professor/Father figure of the group. While the initial group dynamics is quickly set in motion to showcase the camaraderie that exists between the characters, it also becomes quite apparent that in terms of character motivation, the whole time travel aspect is going to be their sole purpose/goal in terms of the entire breadth of the feature. And while that's not necessarily a bad thing, once the group goes into the past, that's when everything goes downhill. Both the French and British characters who are at the core of the conflict, have absolutely no dimension, being for all intended purposes, just clichés/poorly defined sketches, of what those characters are supposed to be. And all this without the sense of humor that the Monty Python performed when tackling similar medieval material. Some of the characters' accents are also a bit all over the place (Anna Friel's French accent is mediocre at best), while the production design is downright underwhelming, making the film look amateurish and poorly developed. The script simply doesn't know how to balance enough character substance with what's happening onscreen, rendering in the process the villainous characters as almost footnotes of this convoluted narrative. The cast tries their best to bring these characters to life, with Gerard Butler, Frances O'Connor, David Thewlis, Michael Sheen, and Billy Connolly, escaping relatively unscathed from it, while Anna Friel and Paul Walker feel miscast and out of place (and maybe that was the goal). The production team also under-delivers, including Caleb Deschanel's cinematography, with the day scenes looking washed out and overly lit (the daylight scenes reminded of John Woo's "Paycheck", also released in 2003, lensed by Jeffrey L. Kimball), and the mediocre production design from Daniel T. Torrance (in what was his first job as Production Designer). It was a big stumble for Mr. Donner, and it is a minor film for a director who was always a competent storyteller.