Rating: 
Summary: 2003 Worst movie award - Walker aint Spielberg
Review: An avid reader of Michael Crichton who really enjoyed his Timeline novel, I could not but be deeply saddened by the poor, botched screen adaptation Mr Walker did of the book. I live in Venice and I should have known better just from the fact Italian film distributors did not even bothered to get the film translated...The scenario is nothing more than a very crude and distant distorsion from the novel. It lacks all the subtilities of the book. When Crichton describes an original and rather accurate vision of the 14th century, Walker heavily uses the typical cheap Holywood-style anachronisms. For instance, Crichton took care to mention nations did not yet exist as most of the English knights were actually from around Bordeaux and the remainder were from norman of french stock. He also underlined people in Castelgard were speaking a long-forgotten local dialect - Occitan . Walker instead already presents them as Frogs and Lobsters from the Napoleonic period, barking at each other. Booh, the movie is a true dillusion, a deception.
A pity, for the book contains the materials to build another Jurassic Park-type blockbuster. But it really takes a master-artist like Steven Spielberg to make an excellent movie from an excellent book. And Walker is not Spielberg. BTW: Lady Claire who is English in the novel becomes French in the movie...
Rating:
Summary: For the love of God, avoid this movie
Review: Dear God!!!! I don't normally write online reviews. Doing so just isn't my thing. But this movie was absolutely HORRID!!! The book was SO MUCH better. Now, Hollywood is pretty much known for butchering novels through movie adaptations, but this was relentless. The incredible detail and enlightening, thoughtful entertainment of Crichton's novel is WIPED OUT and PARED DOWN so that Paul Walker can have a starring vehicle. I have nothing against Paul Walker, but this just wasn't the movie for him. In fact, I envisioned a totally different cast for a story of this magnitude. This movie goes beyond oversimplification of the novel. On it's own, it's just BAD. It is a 1950's B-movie masquerading as a big budget studio production. I might have found it entertaining if it didn't try to take itself so damned seriously, which it was sort of doomed to do since it was SUPPOSED to be based on the Crichton novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good action based on Crichton novel
Review: Timeline is a good movie full of action that may not stay that close to Michael Crichton's novel, but it is still worth a watch. A government agency, the IFC, has developed a machine that can transport people through time. The only problem is that is only goes through a wormhole to 1357 Castlegard, France. A team of archaeoligical students must travel back in time to try and find their missing professor. Once there, they must survive the English and French armies. Making it worse is that they are transported back on the day of a French attack on the English army. The plot jumps around a lot which can make the story somewhat confusing. Even so, this movie is still a lot of fun to watch with plenty of good action. The ensemble cast of Timeline is surprisingly good. Basically, Paul Walker has to look startled and scream a lot, but he is alright as Chris Johnston, the son of the missing professor. Frances O'Connor plays Kate Ericson, the romantic interest and a member of the team. Gerard Butler is excellent as Andre Marek, a member of the team who has a passion for Medieval times. The movie also stars Bill Connolly, Neal McDonough, Anna Friel, Matt Craven, and Ethan Embry. The DVD offers a three-part documentary on the making of, four featurettes, theatrical trailers, and widescreen presentation. For a very entertaining movie with plenty of action and a decent cast, check out Timeline!
Rating:
Summary: WoW!!!
Review: Hollywood is well known for its ability to mangle perfectly good stories but this one seems to set the bar even lower that usual. If you've read Michael Crichton's delicious novel, from which the title (but little else) of this flick was stolen you'll probably start thinking of spending your time more productively sometime during the first 3 minutes - not counting all of the FBI warnings of course. But being a glutton for punishment I watched it all the way through. Crichton's novel is beautifully worked out with lots of historical & scientific information, decent character development and plenty of action. The screenplay, by Jeff Maguire thoroughly butchers, or to put it more charitably - ignores 90% of this. In fairness though one doesn't know if this is Maguire's fault or his being under orders from the higher-ups at Paramount that insist that scripts be crafted for imbeciles. In any event the end result is a never-ending series of fights & battles, all accompanied by a constant low-frequency rumble (is this supposed to be the scary bit?) that rarely lets up. With all of the slashing, burning & fighting you would think that Maguire - or director Richard Donner (it's tough to know whom to credit for some of these inspirations) would have found a spot for the joust that Chris gets himself involved in - a hilarious bit (in the book of course) - that would have been a relief from the rest of this dribble. But nooooooo, this film takes itself very seriously (ah ha! THAT'S why we have the low rumble going! Serious, foreboding) - no laughing matters here. Another bit that was needlessly changed was how the heroes back at the lab dealt with Doniger. It was a (dare I say) cute, ironic manner of fixing him that would bring a smile to most faces. As to the acting: Well, what can I say? Do you blast the actors for an inane script that they're hired to read? How many times can you say "Oh my God!" before your audience begins rolling their eyes? The girls are cute, the boys have the required look of today. I WAS taken aback by the total absence of any sex scenes. I mean Richard, you've got two great looking gals and at least a couple of studs who would compliment them beautifully. Surely you could have found 3 minutes somewhere to insert something. Hey that scene where they run into the building that is burned down by the soldiers. Chris & Kate could easily have gotten it on right there. Then they could have made their escape in the nude! Come on man, where's your vision? That little bit could have been excised from the TV version - or better still, left in. Think of the ratings! Then there is the music. Ah yes, the required inspiration of the post-Star Wars flicks. Lots of low brass - for that ominous feel - vamping endlessly on . . . on . . . well, nothing really. "Composed" - using the word loosely of course - by one Brian Tyler. Is Mr. Tyler a real composer or, as they say in the Hollywood music community, "a hummer?" An "advanced" hummer being one that plays around with a synthesizer until he happens upon some suitable noise that the director (or some other genius involved with the flick) approves, and a "basic" hummer that well, hums. Neither is known for their real ability to write or even read music. But who needs to read music when we can get "the computer to do it?" The obligatory, quasi marching, meanderings are all there of course. Doesn't matter whether we're in the 21st or 13th century - one size fits all. The state of film music is in such a sorry state. It's easy to lay the blame on incompetent "composers," and judging by what we hear, there are quite a few active these days. However, the real blame for the dreck that we so often hear must go to the directors and executives who demand that their own "tastes" be quenched. So, I'm sorry that Michael Crichton's work was so thoroughly abused, though I suppose he was paid handsomely to stay away from the project. After all, we ARE a civilization that plays by the rules of the almighty dollar.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Time-travellin yarn about a group of modern day students who travel back to 1357 France to save their history professor. After becoming quickly embroiled with bloodthirsty knights, the bubonic plague, and a full-fledged war, the movie sets itself up to be a reasonable attempt at the already overdone time traveling theme. Unfortunately, despite the pedigree of the Michael Crichton bestseller on which it was based, the movie rapidly becomes bland and predictable, and too reliant on the viewers willing suspension of disbelief. Suffering from a surprisingly weak script (considering the book for a moment) and fairly average performances the movie struggles to really get going which is a shame. Although the representation of a war torn Middle Ages Europe is visually impressive, the rest of it just gets rather numbing, and one feels that the movie was deservedly chewed by the critics after it's cinematic release last year. Paul Walker (The Fast & the Furious) may wish to forget that he picked this movie as a vehicle to catapult his growing stardom, as only his most ardent fans will find much to shout about. Very Disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Quite good--and a better ending than the book.
Review: This movie has been panned by quite a few Michael Crichton purists. Well, I'm a Michael Crichton fan myself, but I thought that this was a pretty good movie. Not perfect, but then again neither was the book. But very thought-provoking (like most Crichton science fiction novels) with a skillful use of science and scientific speculation. The story is simple enough (no spoilers here). A limited form of time travel has accidentally been discovered, and a leading scientist has become trapped in the past--specifically A.D. 1357 France. A rescue team is formed to go back and get him. But when they arrive, they discover that the era they have entered is a violent, tumultuous one, and they quickly lose control of their mission and are swept into the violent world around them. More would be telling, but this is a pretty good yarn. It also avoids most of the pitfalls of other time travel stories, i.e. the paradoxes and the incredulity that arises from them. The book did an incomparably better job explaining the time travel technology (in Crichton's peerless fashion) than did the movie, which I thought gave this component of the story short shrift. However, the book got pretty bogged down about midway through, while the movie maintained better continuity of story. Further, I thought the movie ending was incomparably better than that of the book, and was in fact beautifully done. The special effects in the movie are not bad either. The catapults, the Greek Fire, and the battle scenes were very well done, and quite realistic. They managed to convey the central concept of the story--that this was a violent place and time, a time of war and conquest. I thought that the acting was pretty OK, if not exceptional. Overall, quite a good movie; one that I'll watch more than once.
Rating: 
Summary: fantastic!
Review: I have never read Michael's book (though I plan to now) but I LOVED this movie. It had suspense, romance and a fab twist of events in a sorta Kate & Leopold way. I adore this, has been added to my all-time fave list! MUST SEE!!!
Rating:
Summary: SINCE WHEN DOES RICHARD DONNER DO SCIENCE FICTION?
Review: A red flag went off in my head when I saw Richard Donner's name on this clunker, 'cause since when does Richard Donner do science fiction??? Yes, Donner was terrific with SUPERMAN, but that was really fantasy not science fiction and it was over 25 years ago!!! Another red flag is Paul Walker, another of those better than average looking below average actors that Hollywood occasionally tries to pump up into a movie star, and he's as lousy in this as he's been in everything else I've seen him in. If you want to see some good time travel science fiction, see George Pal's THE TIME MACHINE with Rod Taylor or Irwin Allens' tv show, THE TIME TUNNEL, but avoid this movie!!! Chari Krishnan
RESEARCHKING
Rating:
Summary: Donner ripped us off
Review: Director Richard Donner clearly cut his losses by doing very little in the way of post-production for this film. The sound effects and visual effects are virtually non-existant. During filming, Donner realized he had a turkey when Paul Walker delivered a vacuum-head performance along with the other jokers that dared to call themselves a cast. What an insult. And a ripoff.
Rating: 
Summary: I couldn't stop laughing!
Review: This movie was sooo funny. From the very beginning I just couldn't stop giggling. I don't normally associate the actors that were familiar to me with doing comedy of this sort. But they sure did a good job of pretending to be serious. Well, maybe not such a good job since it still came across as hilarious. Wait...what's that you say? This wasn't a comedy? Oh. Did anyone tell them that?
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