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?
Rating:
Summary: a thoroughly inept melding of history and sci-fi
Review: Ever had one of those crazy dreams (probably after you've made one too many trips to the salad bar at Medieval Times) where you suddenly find yourself back in the year 1357, holing up in a French castle while all around you French and British forces are enacting the Hundred Years' War? If you have, it was probably more interesting than what we see in "Timeline" - and if you haven't, I am sure you could come up with a more convincing and intriguing scenario than the makers of this film have devised with the same material. Though based on a Michael Crichton novel, "Timeline" is about as bad a sci-fi fantasy as anyone could ever possibly imagine. In this time-tripping tale told by an idiot, a group of modern-day archaeologists in France are transported through a "wormhole" to 14th Century Europe to help retrieve the leader of their dig who has (don't ask how) become stuck in the past. Time-travel yarns require a certain intelligence and finesse to make them both intriguing and convincing. "Timeline" is ludicrous from the very outset, for less than five minutes after our intrepid little heroes first learn of the existence of the way-back machine, they are all suited up in their Medieval garb and heading back in time, utterly unprepared for what they might find there. Once they get to their destination, the plot bogs down in endless scenes of armored men on horseback a-hacking and a-hewing away at the anachronistic visitors. I mean, whose bright idea was it to set up this time machine premise and then send the characters not forward into a potentially interesting future but BACKWARDS to take part in a creaky, hackneyed Medieval romance? It's one thing to set up this time-bending scenario; it's quite another to do absolutely nothing with it. Oh sure, there's the usual deep-think palaver about whether or not these folks from the future should risk tampering with history etc., but the filmmakers' sights seem to be set on more mundane matters like elaborate action and fight sequences and puppy-love romance. And, of course, all these archaeologists turn out to be expert swords- and bowmen, fully the equal in skill and talent to their 14th Century brethren. On the whole, the acting is amateurish, the dialogue inane and the special effects virtually nonexistent for a film of this type. The film, in fact, both looks and feels like a third-rate, throwaway project designed for no purpose other than to give Paramount Studios a corporate-loss write-off come tax time. "Timeline" is like H.G. Wells for the high school dropout.
Rating:
Summary: Butchered
Review: They completely destroyed an excellent book. I reread the book for the 5th time or so last week, and I couldn't get this horrible movie out of my mind. They plot was torn to shreds, they left out at least 80% of it. The book gave the characters depth, the movie didn't. The book gave plausible explanations for everything. The movie came up with some stupid explanation that had little to do with the book. In the book, they could go to anywhere they wanted, in cage-like machines that they could summon. Little pendants with a button? Phft.
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