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Disaster in Time

Disaster in Time

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Let Bygoners Be Bygoners
Review: --a "communal review" by Charly Wood's English 101 class Owensboro Community College

Often when you think of a science-fiction movie, big hits such as INDEPENDENCE DAY and STAR WARS come to mind. Rarely though, do you see a movie that offers an original story with the absence of large scale special effects. In the movie GRAND TOUR, you are given the rare opportunity to use your imagination. This movie did a good job of not making the idea of time travel any more complicated than it had to be.

The strange tourists in the story are able to travel around using special "passports" to watch certain events as they occur. They now desire to watch catastrophic events unfold as some sort of pathetic entertainment. It seems to give them back the excitement they lack in their world.

There were several situations in the movie where there were ethical choices to be made. This movie gives you the opportunity to dive into yourself and explore your own moral standards.

The acting quality did lack at times--the visitors went a little overboard and the daughter seemed a little too perfect to be believable. The movie, however, has a wonderful plot with some strong character building and a fresh approach to time travel. The main character, Ben Wilson (played by Jeff Daniels), is tormented throughout the movie with an unresolved inner conflict. Despite his own guilt feelings and his father-in-law's constant criticism, he has been able to develop a touching relationship with his young daughter. The movie combined the disasters, both personal and the ones the traverlers saw, very well.

All things considered, we think you should take the "time" to "travel" to the video store and rent GRAND TOUR. It is one "event" that is worth watching.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Grand Tour "Disaster in Time" is a great movie
Review: I appreciate your prompt service. Everything went without a hitch.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: The Bygoners
Review: I loved the Sci-fi film, "Pitch Black" and so when I saw another, older Sci-fi film from the same director (David Twohy), well, I just had to see it. Unfortunately, "Grand Tour: Disaster in Time" deprives us of Vin Diesel, and gives us Jeff Daniels, instead, in the lead role.

Widower Ben Wilson (Jeff Daniels) is in the process of renovating an old mansion located on the outskirts of town when a busload of bizarre people arrive and offer any amount of money to stay there for three days. Now considering that the house is a total mess (including no doors on the rooms), the strangers' strong desire to stay in the mansion seems more than a bit fishy.

"Grand Tour: Disaster in Time" is a time travel film, and it offers some interesting new variations on that theme. Unfortunately, the film suffers from bad acting (the travelers), bad costumes (the travelers once again), and a sentimental sub-plot. The words "low-budget" screamed out at me occasionally, and low budget is one thing that really hampers a time travel film. The end result is a cheesy film that has a 60s-feel to it, awful make-up (Jeff Daniels looks as though someone stuck a glob of blue paint across his eye), bad hairstyles, and pathetic costumes (we all know a mask when we see one). The plot also needs some serious rehashing as the initial time travel idea is stretched beyond the interesting and moves into foolishness--displacedhuman

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: The Bygoners
Review: I loved the Sci-fi film, "Pitch Black" and so when I saw another, older Sci-fi film from the same director (David Twohy), well, I just had to see it. Unfortunately, "Grand Tour: Disaster in Time" deprives us of Vin Diesel, and gives us Jeff Daniels, instead, in the lead role.

Widower Ben Wilson (Jeff Daniels) is in the process of renovating an old mansion located on the outskirts of town when a busload of bizarre people arrive and offer any amount of money to stay there for three days. Now considering that the house is a total mess (including no doors on the rooms), the strangers' strong desire to stay in the mansion seems more than a bit fishy.

"Grand Tour: Disaster in Time" is a time travel film, and it offers some interesting new variations on that theme. Unfortunately, the film suffers from bad acting (the travelers), bad costumes (the travelers once again), and a sentimental sub-plot. The words "low-budget" screamed out at me occasionally, and low budget is one thing that really hampers a time travel film. The end result is a cheesy film that has a 60s-feel to it, awful make-up (Jeff Daniels looks as though someone stuck a glob of blue paint across his eye), bad hairstyles, and pathetic costumes (we all know a mask when we see one). The plot also needs some serious rehashing as the initial time travel idea is stretched beyond the interesting and moves into foolishness--displacedhuman

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: missed this one
Review: I want to award four stars because it was a good, solid story and refreshing to see a time-travel movie I had missed. But it is dated, effects are comparable to a late 80's low to mid-level production value and there is a hole or two. Ain't perfect, but by no means a bad movie. My girlfriend made it through no problem. When I first put it in, I immediately said this is going to be dated sci-fi= your not going to like. But she enjoyed it. Not really "Grand", but watchable. As a sci-fan, I was beholden to check this out and was not disappointed, but actually pretty impressed.

The story: A group of time traveling tourists come back to see a disaster unfold in a small town where Jeff Daniels' character has a small Inn (with a perfect view). The story is not as cut-and-dry as you might think though, he does of course figure it out and try to stop it from happening, but there are some interesting twists that make this a cut above the average. rent.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Time Travel Adventure Not To Be Missed
Review: I'm a sucker for any time travel story and this is a good one. The premise is that a group of jaded people from the future go back in time to observe various disasters from the past such as the Chicago fire, the eruption of Krakatoa, etc. The hero is the operator of a small hotel where such a disaster is about to occur and his latest tenants are a group from the future. If you like time travel stories as I do, you'll love this one. Well written and well acted. Fascinating premise; absorbing execution. Maybe this is not the best such story you'll ever read, but well worth your time and the price.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not great, but memorable
Review: Jeff Daniels portrays a widower, a single parent of a little girl, and owner of a bed-and-breakfast or boarding house in a small town. A group of very odd tourists takes up residence in his house, and Daniels gradually pieces together the truth: these people are time-travelling tourists from our future, who are here to witness some great event in (their) history. So, when the great event does occur, why don't they leave? Is something else going to happen?

The special effects aren't great, but the story is suspenseful and the acting is very credible. Jeff Daniels does a fine job portraying Mr. Everyman with some intellect and almost enough curiosity to kill the kitty.


Very good. Very watchable.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Exellent but not well known film .
Review: Not well known but very good and solid sci-fi film on the time travel . By director David N. Twohy ( The Arrival , Pitch Black ) and starring Jeff Daniels .
Jeff Daniels playing an owner of small motel/hotel in a small town in the mid America . He cann't forgive himself for running away from the site of the accident few years back . The accident which took his wife's life . His father in law , a judge in this town , cann't forgive him eather and trying to take his granddaughter away from him . At the same time a group of very strange tourists came in town and checked in J.Daniels's hotel .They way too strange and even weard . Keep talking about some "spectical", and later we found out that they are the tourists ... in time . They travel to se all the biggest disasters of the 20th century . And the last one should come to this little town ...
Cann't tell you more ... you have to se it yourself . But after slow start this film developes very fast and has more than anough twists and turns to deserve a very solid 5 stars .

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: When you try to improve on an original ...
Review: This film is a take on C L Moore's classic short story "Vintage Season". In "Vintage Season" time travellers from a distant future visit the present. Just as wine connosieurs savour a particular "year" so does these travellers seek out a specific year noteworthy for its unexpected descent into tragedy. Like that last Bank Holiday in August 1914, before the Great War came. The travellers are totally dispassionate about the events they witness, they are just as happy visiting the coronation of Charlemagne as they at witnessing the collapse of a modern civilisation. Reading the story conveys the impression that time travellers would view any world they visit as sort of an open air zoo or theme park. The story is disturbing, particularly as it is written from the persceptive of a man who only gradually realises that his visitors are the equivalent of racecourse spectators waiting for a crash, and that his world is doomed to collapse. The travellers are venal, petty and devoid of any empathy for the suffering of others.

Whilst copying several of the plot elements from the original story the film burdens Jeff Daniels with an unbelievable soap opera-ish tragedy in his past. The tragedy is supposed to invigourate Mr Daniels into trying to change the future, even though he can't change the past. The narration is weak, and the "action" by Daniels lacks any dramatic tension. Daniels is an actor too associated with light roles to bring much dramatic tension or detremination to the role. A happy ending when the future has already been written ? A great story looses all its strength when watered down to this anaemic film.

Unfortunately this film, like the latest remake of the "Time Machine" just doesn't do justice to its antecedents.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: When you try to improve on an original ...
Review: This film is a take on C L Moore's classic short story "Vintage Season". In "Vintage Season" time travellers from a distant future visit the present. Just as wine connosieurs savour a particular "year" so does these travellers seek out a specific year noteworthy for its unexpected descent into tragedy. Like that last Bank Holiday in August 1914, before the Great War came. The travellers are totally dispassionate about the events they witness, they are just as happy visiting the coronation of Charlemagne as they at witnessing the collapse of a modern civilisation. Reading the story conveys the impression that time travellers would view any world they visit as sort of an open air zoo or theme park. The story is disturbing, particularly as it is written from the persceptive of a man who only gradually realises that his visitors are the equivalent of racecourse spectators waiting for a crash, and that his world is doomed to collapse. The travellers are venal, petty and devoid of any empathy for the suffering of others.

Whilst copying several of the plot elements from the original story the film burdens Jeff Daniels with an unbelievable soap opera-ish tragedy in his past. The tragedy is supposed to invigourate Mr Daniels into trying to change the future, even though he can't change the past. The narration is weak, and the "action" by Daniels lacks any dramatic tension. Daniels is an actor too associated with light roles to bring much dramatic tension or detremination to the role. A happy ending when the future has already been written ? A great story looses all its strength when watered down to this anaemic film.

Unfortunately this film, like the latest remake of the "Time Machine" just doesn't do justice to its antecedents.


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