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The Time Machine

The Time Machine

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $13.49
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Buy it only for the effects
Review: Effects were top notch ... story line a little long and not very dramatic. The CGI effects were fantastic and well worth a look. My advice is buy it for the effects and then lend it to your friends !!!!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Watch something else for quality, watch this for fun.
Review: Oookay...Take it easy everyone. Why so much hate for this film?This is science fiction at its best. Cheesy? Check! Bad acting? Check! Creatures? Check! Awesome special effects? Check! (kinda reminds me of that 'masterpiece' Attack of the Clones, not worth the film it was printed on, but extremely enjoyable nevertheless). Who gives a crap whether or not it has a plot? It's damn fine entertainment. And lay off Guy Pearce. I never thought he was painful to watch in any of his prior films- Priscilla/LA Confidential/Memento. Honestly, were you all expecting something better? In my opinion (and thank god I am entitled to one) this movie reeked in a good way (unlike 'planet of the apes', which smelled too bad to excuse). I really enjoyed it as much as I did "I know what you did last summer" and I am an adult who is not afraid to admit that sometimes my brain needs a break.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: fun
Review: This movie was a fun family flick, but not the best. If you like movies by orson wells then you will enjoy this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Great movie
Review: I never seen the 60s vesion .I like this move becuse has a real hero with way out there ideas .This movie had the best throey on time travel .I think the ended should been redone to fit the book and to make if don't end a happay ending they could have made squael to it .But it's still a Great moive it move me alot in a good way that very few movies do .

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Another Excellent Chapter
Review: I have seen this film get a bad knock or two for literary license. Let us remember that this film was directed by Simon Wells. The original book was written by H.G. Wells. The Director is the great grandson of the famous author. Therefore, can his vision of the Time Machine be any less creative than the original vision of his great grandfather? Both men created a Science Fiction classic presented through their talent and creative presentation of this concept of travel through time. Both ought to be measured on their own merit individually, and both are quite excellent.

Comparisons to the original movie, directed by George Pal and starring Rod Taylor, often discount the simple fact that film artists of the time were constrained by the technology available. It was the vision of a gifted director, and certainly a classic and wonderful adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel. Nevertheless, being different and unique, the new version is beautiful and brilliant.

Guy Pearce does a fine job in the lead role of distracted scientist, driven by creative passion to create a machine with which to travel into the past to save his fiance. Finding he could not change the past, seeks to find answers in the future that will enable him to ultimately save her.

The special effects sequences are astounding and altogether marvelous. The time machine itself is a construct of pure genius. It is beautiful, brilliant, and astounding in design. The effects seen as centuries pass and the world changes around the time traveller are some of the best special effects ever produced.

The purpose of movies is to entertain, and this one delivers in abundance. It is not a remake of George Pal's vision, nor does it conform entirely to the H.G. Wells novel. It is a unique vision of Simon Wells, and viewed on its own merit, is absolutely excellent. The purpose of Science Fiction is to inspire a certain degree of awe and sense of wonder in boldly charging into the unknown. This film does this as deftly as any made in recent years.

My only reservation is that English would still be a living language 800,000 years from now. That struck me as highly unlikely. So too the lack of weathering on stones with carved lettering from centuries past. Aside from that small gripe, I found the film to be amazing and wonderful. I was entirely entertained.

I give this film 5 stars, and expect to watch it repeatedly over the years and enjoy it many times. It is one of the few made in recent times that one wishes to see again and again. In fact, after seeing it in the theatre twice, I have seen it on DVD 3 times already! Not bad in a collection of over 450 DVD movies!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It is not the original, but still is a fun movie
Review: I thought this movie certainly could have been much better, but it was still fun to watch. One of the problems with directors and producers in many Hollywood remakes is that they tend to "dumb down" a movie, in this case H.G. Wells "The Time Machine", by making a movie that vaguely represents the original novel. It would have been great to see a more realistic portrayel of the book. For instance, in the book the time traveler arrives to a place where no one speaks English; in this movie, the time traveler arrives to find that a few people can communicate with him. The novel's time traveller goes to the future and explores quite awhile before seeing any signs of life; in this movie, Alexander is taken to a future where people immediately take him in and help him back to health.(This seemed to diminish the notion of mystery that the movie was trying to produce.)

Also, I just don't get why they use overblown fighting scenes in movies that do not really require it. Although a certain amount is fun to watch, overdoing it seems to take away from the integrity of the movie. For instance, we have this major struggle between one of the Morlocks (a race of individuals who have evolved into cannibalistic creatures) and Alexander Hartdegan (the time traveller and protagonist) that is kind of tacky and is unnecessarily long.

There are many positives to this movie. One is the special effects of the time travel sequences, where we see the passage of modern advances and technology as Alexander proceeds through each century. Another is the main story plot of Alexander trying to change the past to save his fiancee's tragic accident. Believing that he is somewhat to blame for her death, he tries to go back and change this. In discovering that going back to the past cannot change the future, he decides to go into the future to explore the possibilities of fate and decisions. I felt like the acting was good: Guy Pearce is stellar in his ablility of playing the part of a desparate man wanting to change history; Samantha Mumba is commendable as one of the people of the future race that can speak English, representing his hope of finding his answer.

I must admit that I have not seen the original 1960 version of The Time Machine, but I felt like this was a movie that brings to life the possibility of time travel and its consequences. This movie does not have any "big name" Hollywood actors (maybe Jeremy Irons), but still it is a sci-fi movie worth seeing.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Home Theater disappointment
Review: Story aside this film has some great special effects mixed in with poor. At times this film is TV quality in effects and writing. My biggest beef is that of picture quality, ether poor encoding or DVD limitations this film becomes very blurry at times, I am sure this is fine on a 27" screen but home theaters that show great detail will be disappointed with this film. The only redeeming value is the sound track with DTS was very nice.

Picture quality 3.5 stars, Sound 5 stars

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: OK...But Could Have Been Alot Better
Review: Simon Wells' "Time Machine" is an ambitious F/X laden re-make of the original sci-fi classic starring Rod Taylor as a time traveller who witnesses the destruction of civilization and travels 800,000 years into the future to find that mankind has survived a planetary catastrophe, but has in the process evolved into two speperate species, the submissive Eloi and the cannabalistic Morlocks. This new adaptation sticks closer to the 1960 film far more than H.G. Wells' classic novel, but despite the great sets, special effects, and Samantha Mumba's skimpy outfit, something is desperately missing from this outting.

Guy Pearce stars as Alexander Hartdegan, an eccentric physics professor from turn-of-the-century New York City who becomes obsessed with building a time machine after the tragic death of his fiance. Despite his attempts to travel back in time to save his love from death, he finds that he cannot change the past, and thus embarks on a journey into the future to find the answer as to why. After a brief stop-over in 2030 NYC, he witnesses the destruction of civilization as the Moon, blown asunder by a nuclear accident, rains down upon the earth and virtually wipes out mankind. He accidentally travels forward 800,000 years into the future only to find that, as in the original, humans have now evolved into two seperate species. It is here that the film loses it's energy and becomes bogged down in typical action fare and overblown special effects that tend to overpower and kill the story. While undeniably amazing, unfortunately, special effects do not make a good story. The film also suffers from a few big plot holes that are hard to ignore. For example, after only what is essentially a few hours of time travelling, Hartdegen seems to have completely forgotten his obsessive love for his dead fiance and falls for the beautiful Eloi woman Mara. Would someone who was so driven and grief-striken as our hero seems to be for the loss of his true love manage to totally forget about her in the course of a few hours or days? The film also feels as if it loses pacing in the middle, as if needed scenes are missing. Certain scenes ARE missing regarding the destruction of Earth during the fall of the Moon. These key scenes were cut in post-production after September 11 because they showed NYC being destroyed in a fiery rain of meteorites. I feel that these scenes may have helped add something to the film as it is never really made clear what happened that caused the destruction of the earth, as we are basically given a quick shot of the break-up of the Moon and the chaos that ensues, but the emotional tie-in that SHOULD be there is lost. In the original film, when Rod Taylor witnesses the destruction of his beloved London during a atomic attack, we feel the terror and awe of the destruction of all civilization, as it truly is the end of the world as we know it. "The labor of centuries...gone in an instant!" It illustrates man's frailty and transience in this world, how we hang precariously from a weak branch despite our belief in our own invulnerablity. But here, we get no such emotionally charge event, nothing to show the terror that anyone who witnesses the anihilation of the world as he knows it would experience. In losing this we lose something else that seems to leave the story lifeless as it degenerates into a Planet of the Apes rehash.

Despite a strong opening, the Time Machine loses its momentum in the last half and we are left, once again, wanting something more.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Bad
Review: This movie was just plain old bad and it cost 122 million dollars to make! Where did all that money go? I think it went to the bad special effects and the futuristic scenes. Everything in the movie to me looked really fake. The acting was okay that could have been worse. If your looking for a good movie try the original Time Machine in 1960, It was more interesting and didn't rely on special effects to be exciting. I don't recommend this movie at all.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Amazing movie!
Review: This is an exciting, interesting, great movie. My heart was thumping wildly all the way through it. It had great special effects! It was a bit scary at times, though. Guy Pearce was great in it. A creative movie for ages 11 and up!


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