Temporal Weaknesses galore

Rating: 2/10 (11 November 2013)

The movie is meant to be a chick-flick sort of affair, and my wife and I were all for it. However, I left the theater with my intelligence being fully insulted. The creators of the film should not be able to abuse the rules of their fictional account to the benefit of simply moving a story forward, especially rules they've created themselves. The suspension of disbelief was shattered, and in movies dealing with time, the awe and majesty of such an ability were never truly conveyed. Not even in terms of love and endearment. Furthermore, the moral quandaries of time travel and eternal life were abruptly placed together near the end of the film, but the message was not earned. Lastly, this was not an original idea. Ground Hog Day did it better.
The trailer for this movie was phenomenal. The idea to travel through time via one's memory was fascinating. However, this movie broke all of the rules in temporal time travel, including the rules for time travel used during the movie.
Firstly, there was an underlying impression that only the men of the family could travel through time. This rule was broken when the main character took his sister back through time. Second, there was a rule that he couldn't travel to the future. However, when one goes to the past to change something, the future is also permanently affected. Yet, in the film, he manages to go to the past and to this new future (that no longer exists, that he was no longer a part of), seamlessly. To tie together the first broken rule; how far back did he need to go in order to undo how he changed his sister's past/future? How did he end up in a future he had erased? Third, one could potentially, live forever. The movie put a constraint on this as it nicely put an emphasis on developing relationships with his family. However, the mortality of it all, even when dealing with his father's death (really, suicide) is hardly ever dealt with considering the scope of their powers. Fourth, during the love scene, he makes a joke that presumes he is tired. But how can he be tired if he traveled back in time? Other then retaining his memories, all other aspects of his physical well-being, his energy levels, and his health, should all be unaffected.
There were other fundamental flaws. The love between his wife and himself felt highly one-sided. She seems to have settled for him as soon as he managed to interject her path. The main character, persistently leads a double life since he never tells his wife about his abilities. In other words, his love is a lie and arguments and all other incidents involved in real love could be avoided. For example, during their first argument, his reaction was to run away and turn back time. The powers to travel through time were kept acute...meaning that the guy never used it to better society or the world at large. Everything felt so...small...and the gravity of the ability was never truly felt.