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The Time Machine starts in New York during 1899 where Professor Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce) proposes to his beloved girlfriend Emma (Sienna Guillory) who accepts, unfortunately just after they are attacked by a mugger & Emma is shot dead & dies in Alexander's arms. Jump forward 'Four Years Later' & Alexander has built a time machine which he uses to travel back to the night Emma was killed in order to save her but she is still killed, only a different way this time. Alexander realises whatever he does, however many times he goes back Emma will always end up dead one way or another & he yearns to know the answer why so he travels far into the future to discover the truth. However after having destroyed the moon two new races have evolved on Earth, the human like Eloi & the monstrous Morlock's that eat the Eloi. Alexander decides to stick around & save the Eloi.
Directed by Simon Wells who is actually the great grandson of author H.G. Wells who wrote the original The Time Machine book on which the original The Time Machine (1960) film was based & it is in fact the 1960 film that producer John Logan's script is based upon here rather than Wells original literally source. While all three share the same basic story & ideas this remake adds the subplot about Alexander's fiancé Emma being killed & that's the reason he invents a time machine rather than just because he is clever & he can. The script is a mixture of sci-fi, action adventure & drama none of which really grabbed me or engaged me that much, sure there are a few pretty special effects, a few nice action scenes & the moment when Alexander's question is answered regarding why he can't save Emma is actually quite intelligent & makes sense it never really captured my imagination & I was never really moved by it either. The time travel aspects of The Time Machine feel very similar to Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1992) in the sense you can't change the past but at the same time the future is not set only The Time Machine isn't anywhere near as good a film as Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The character's are alright although I thought Guy Pearce just looked too young to be a brainy scientist capable of inventing a time machine & there's never any real explanation behind it's mechanics either as it's like one moment there's no time machine the next he has invented & made one & it works perfectly. I reckon the Back to the Future trilogy offer far more thrills, laughs, excitement & general entertainment value than The Time Machine ever does & while I will stop short of calling it a bad film since it moves along at a decent pace, tells a reasonable story & has it's moments I wouldn't call it brilliant or even particularly good. There is also a cheeky little reference to the book & original film which are both name-checked here.
The benefit this modern version has over the original is the development of special effects & in particular CGI which leads to scenes of time rapidly passing around Alexander in his time machine complete with huge buildings being built, new ridges, canyons & mountains being formed & a elaborate pan back which ends up in space as we see passenger rockets orbiting the moon. The effects work is good, there are one or two moments that look a little below par but generally speaking the effects are good. I saw The Time Machine on telly & the station playing it badly pan and scanned it so the left & right edges of the frame were cut off the screen thus cutting off part of the year on Alexander's time machine dial so I actually didn't know what year he went to. Apparently director Gore Verbinski took over the last eighteen days of filming as Wells was suffering from 'extreme exhaustion' while the IMDb says that the time machine itself was the biggest & most expensive prop ever built for a film at that point which I find hard to believe & Guy Pearce broke a rib during a fight scene but like a trooper carried on.
With a supposed budget of about $80,000,000 the production values are high with a lovingly recreated period New York & good effects work although amazingly The Time Machine was nominated for an Oscar for best make-up but lost out to Frida (2002). The acting is mixed, Jermey Irons puts in a good performance in a terrible make-up job that has him looking like a reject from a Lord of the Rings film while singer Samantha Mumba makes her big screen debut here & is simply terrible although Guy Pearce is quite good & fairly likable.
The Time Machine isn't a particularly bad film or a particularly good one, just a somewhat unremarkable one that is watchable & passes an hour and a half but not much else. Watch Back to the Future (1985) again instead.


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