Rating: 
Summary: Fair Movie
Review: The only thing besides the characters that this movie has in common with the book is that it is slow to start. This is a good movie to see if you like action and have no intention of reading the book. I have learned to accept that no one has been to be able to do a fair adapation of a Michael Chrichton book since Jurassic Park. Watch it for the sake of watching it, but don't expect it to faithfully represent the novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Paramount really dropped the ball on this one!
Review: The book "Timeline" is a really awesome and fascinating book about the whole concept of time travel, even if it is too far fetched for it to ever become a reality. I was amazed at the books concept and wondered how they would be able to adapt it to the big screen. Sadly, whatever was good about that book is thrown right out the window when on the big screen adaptation. This movie just soils the fun of the book and the result is a totally atrocious and absolutely laughable stinker of a movie. This movie in fact feels almost nothing like the book, not that I was expecting a whole lot to be taken out of the book and placed onto the movie but even when looking at it from a non-reader, this movie is just plain awful. The acting by almost all of the cast is hollow and the directing is just lame. In fact, I haven't seen a movie that was so badly miscast like this in many years, at least since "Batman & Robin" from years back which was also awful in it's own right. "Timeline" is one of the prime examples of how they could take a great and amazing book with an awesome concept and rob it of all of it's meaning with a really mindless mess of a movie and ruin the book's legacy. While it's far from being one of the worst movies of all time, that belongs to "Dumb and Dumberer" and "Gigli", "Timeline" is one of the weakest movies of 2003. Tell Paramount and Company to go back to the movie studio and start all over on this movie because I refuse to accept this as an adaptation of the Crichton Novel. A total disappointment. Do not waste your time on this movie.
Rating: 
Summary: not that bad
Review: Yes ive seen this movie and it ain't as bad as you people say. I mean the movie has a alot of action and potential.
Rating:
Summary: Night Arrows!
Review: Because I loved this book so much I was expecting very little from the movie. That's how it generally works with Michael Crichton, and I've learned my lesson after Congo, Sphere, and Lost World, all great books and poor movies. And even with making such low demands on the film, it still topped them all. This is possibly Crichton's best novel and definitely the worst adaptation, maybe the worst adaptation of any popular fiction book ever. Timeline failed on every level in which a movie can fail. The acting was atrocious by just about everyone who had the misfortune to be involved, the adaptation is a shred of what the original story is, the dialogue sounded as though it were made up on the spot by the actors, the 14th century realism was on the level of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and the casting couldn't have been worse if you'd been trying. The whole movie had a low budget feel to it, producing a result I would've expected ten or fifteen years ago before audiences really cared. The movie (not the novel) is about several archeologist/graduate students who travel back in time to rescue their professor who's been trapped in 14th century France. They only have six hours to do it or else they're forever stuck there. Nobody can go back and rescue them after their six hours have expired, despite the fact that that's exactly what they are doing to the professor. Once they have journeyed back in time things start to go predictably wrong in the past and in the present. Using their knowledge of history, the archeology kids manipulate the armies of England and France while trying to fix various anachronisms they've introduced and not create new ones in the process. There's love, war, even unintentional comedy. What more could you ask for in a film? Answers below. 1. Acting - I'm going to just say it: Paul Walker (Chris) is the worst male actor I've ever seen in a major-budget movie. Hands down. Worse than Keanu, worse than Vin Diesel. The only thing that helps him in this movie is Frances O'Connor (Katie) who is, amazingly, even worse. What makes it so unbearable is that the storyline keeps Paul and Frances together for most of the movie, so we get to see these two gems with no one else on screen to hide behind. In the spirit of honesty, I have to say that I've seen better acting in porn. I hope for the sake of film that Paul Walker isn't the flavor of the month long enough to ruin more potentially good films, not that Timeline is really in that category. 2. Plot - The adaptation of Timeline drastically departed from Crichton's novel and in all the wrong directions. I realize that certain aspects must be changed from a book to make the movie work, but there's a certain point at which the story can become so severely mangled that any reason for the story existing in the first place is gone. That's what happened to Timeline. Why was Timeline a huge bestselling novel? Because it was the first technically plausible time-travel story that we'd ever read. It combined detailed fact with fiction in the seamless way only Crichton can do it. And it painted a realistic picture of how such technology might be exploited if they were developed. Without that, it's just another brainless sci-fi story. Now here's the point - *none of those things made it into the movie!* That's what made it great, and none of it's there. The result is a convoluted mess that is hard to follow even if you know the rough storyline. 3. Realism - Director Richard Donnor made it a point in an interview to state that he was going to favor actual sets instead of special effects. I'm all for this generally - if you're actually going to put some work and money into it. One problem that epics such as Braveheart and Lord of the Rings have created is that half-hearted offerings such as Timeline are pallid and limp next to them. Half a dozen English soldiers clumsily drawing their swords while dramatic music plays just isn't going to cut it. Nor are "night arrows," which, though I'm not a history expert, I'm pretty certain never existed as a legitimate military threat, certainly not on the cunning level of warfare mastery with which they are depicted in Timeline. And the "If we don't leave it here then we'll never find it in the future!" moments give me another reason to cite Bill and Ted as a comparison. If Michael Crichton wants a good movie made out of one of his books, apparently he's going to have to write the screenplay himself as he did with Jurassic Park. I understand that he pioneered a new kind of contract with Timeline, accepting a percentage of the Box Office in lieu of a set dollar amount. I have to wonder how he felt about that decision after seeing the first cut of this epic disaster.
Rating:
Summary: Out of time!
Review: Boring adaptation of a Michael Crichton's novel in which a group of archaelogists are involved in a time travel adventure and find themselves obliged to fight in a medieval war between France and England. The movie is completely out of pace, although directed by a very known director (Richard Donner, who made 'Superman' and 'Lethal Weapon', full of cardboard situations and misses the point completely. In fact, 'Timeline' could have been a good time travel entry but is just a juvenile movie of sword fight.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome book!...possibly the worse movie i've ever seen...
Review: Ok, I read Timeline in I think January, and was a bit anxious to see how the movie would relate to the book. Boy, what a waste of a rental...Let me tell you something...read the book, please do. Use your imagination...when you're reading the book, dont think about Paul Walker in the place of Chris...it just ruins everything. I mean, this movie was so different than the book, that they shouldn't share the same name. They DESTROYED! Chricthon's awesome book. Ya'll, really go read the book, its soo good...watch the movie afterwards and see what im talking about. Possibly the worse acting ive ever seen, and the worse adaptaption of a book ive seen.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for a rainy weekend
Review: "Timeline" is like the Amazon discription said good popcorn movie. I call it great popcorn cheese. I gave it two stars, but if you are looking at it as a popcorn cheese then it ranks as a 4 star in that genre. Timeline rapidly explains on how they discovered this wormhole. They are so quick at explaining how this happened I just feel that they couldn't come up with a good idea its like they talked under their breath and just hoped you really didn't hear how lame of a plotline how they discovered the wormhole. This movie just had you laughing at the cheesy lines. This should have been on SciFi Channel Saturday night movie. Its perfect for that. Great bad acting (Paul Walker, who makes Vin Diesel look like Christopher Walken) and of course cheese lines after line. Even a nice cute little ending. This movie is definitley a rental, but wouldn't waste money on purchasing it.
Rating:
Summary: Could Have Been A Contender!
Review: When I heard that they were making a movie to Timeline, I decided that I wanted to check out the book first. Well, I loved the book and couldn't wait for the movie. Sadly I was greatly disappointed.
Not that the movie is without it's moments. It is a nice little tail of a group of time travelers who go back in time to a very dangerous France to try and rescue this one guys father. That is about as close to the book as the movie comes though.
First off I hated the fact they dropped the huge time deadline they had to get back in the book to a mere 6 hours in the movie. It ends up making the movie feel really rushed. Next the filmakers nicely color coded the French and English for us. ( Bad guys in red. Good guys in blue!)
I know this seems like trival whining. But the movie feels like it is dumbed down to make it a "Summer Blockbuster" movie instead of a really great action sci fi adventure. All in all it was a movie with a lot of potential sadly squandered. :(
Rating:
Summary: A fair rating
Review: Rating
1 star = abysmal, run & hide
2 star = poor
3 star = good, worth the effort
4 star = very good
5 star = great, must own =============================================
This is a good movie.
Not a bad movie. Not a great movie. If you are going to compare it to the book then just forget watching this because you will be disappionted. If you watch this and like it and it gets you curious about the book, then don't wait. Get the book, its awesome! Back to the movie review:
1) Action sequences were pretty good. The brief scenes showing the seige of La Roche was an interesting glimpse into medevil warfare 2) The movie feels like a 3+ hr movie crammed into just 2hrs. This worked for some things (kept the action going and gave a sense of trying to fly through the pages of the book because I couldn't wait to see what happened next) but for other things (characterization and plot) it left something to be desired 3) I liked seeing Paul Walker in something different than Fast & Furious. He seemed relaxed and not trying too hard. A likeable character. 4) This is a movie...they forget the science and leave a lot of questions. They found a wormhole. How? Who cares. Deal with it. Read Crichton's PREY and you'll appreciate the brevity of this story's explaination. 5) My wife who was totally ignorate to the book or the movie or Paul Walker thought it was a good watch. We popped the popcorn and enjoyed the continuing downward spiral of situations for the characters. 6) The end was VERY rushed. One second survivors are patting each other on the back and the next frame time has passed and there is some dialogue and the movie is over. OVERALL: If you can keep and open mind and watch it for what it is, you should have fun and enjoy a Fairly GOOD movie. Hopefully you'll want to read the book afterward and realize it is a GREAT book.
Rating:
Summary: Life was not so good in medieval times..
Review: Based on Michael Crichton's novel of transposing modern day humans back into medieval times, it follows the book nicely. Personally I would much rather have seen a film of the trilogy written by Stephen Donaldson on the same hyposis and along similar times, one of which is titled A MAN RIDES THROUGH. Both use mirrors to achieve the time warp experience from medieval to this century. This story takes place in 1971 where a diverse group of archaeology students, working under the auspices of ITC in New Mexico, are involved in excavating the ruins of Castlegard in France. Their professor has disappeared and, using a wormhole in a wooded area, are transported back in time to rescue him. They have six hours in our concept of time and given markers to use for their return within that timeline. Arriving on April 4, 1357, the day of a French attack on this particular castle, we see a lot of action. Only the modern men showed fear in combat. William Decker, stranded there 400 years in the past because of transcription errors, exemplified the savage cruelty which is second nature in a hostile environment. He showed this young group 'the price we pay' for discovery, that knowledge of history depends upon survival. One thing worse than dying here is living here, they were told. This film uses a primitive set of castle grounds complete with thatched roof. The church at the base of a mountain on whidh a fortress stood contained a tomb of a couple holding hands in death. In the modern scene, the female student was intrigued with the dead man having only one ear. The mystery is revealed during the fireworks of a fierce battle that evening. One of their group was ready to change history over a woman; instead, he spends 25 years back in time to die in 1382. Andre Merick had his ear cut off and stayed behind with his love, Lady Clare. He'd commented to her, "We are speaking the same language but you don't understand anything I am saying to you." You've got to see the Greek fire used in this fight in the name of justice. They were told, "God is on your side." The night arrows turned the tide. A lot of fire was used. Because of the timeline (6 hrs. down to a few minutes) for anyone to safely return, a battle was also going on in the lab as time runs out. You must see the entire episode to discover who indeed returns and who is lost. "Well done, my Lord."
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