Although it’s adapted from a swiftly paced Michael Crichton novel to which it stays fairly faithful, the stunningly weak Timeline is a dreadfully dull excuse for a sci-fi action thriller, not to mention a career low for director Richard Donner.
A group of graduate students is excavating an old castle in France when a strange message from their professor that carbon-dating suggests is 600 years old. Turns out the old coot has wayback-machined himself to the 14th century! The corporation behind the technology making it all possible recruits a few of the kids to go back in time as well to save him.
And how I wish I could go back in time to save myself two hours and four bucks. This is not a story — it’s an endlessly cycling collection of footage of knights falling down, students climbing out of houses, swords clanging, and our heroes checking their “countdown markers” to see how much time they have left to make their rescue. In the spirit of things, I kept checking the readout on my DVD player to see how much more crap was left to unload before the closing credits.
If I hadn’t read the novel beforehand, I never would. There are so many things wrong with this movie that I lost count. But I have mustered up enough energy to recall three:
• Scottish comedian Billy Connelly — Howard Hesseman’s replacement on Head of the Class — plays the professor. Do you remember how annoying it is to hear Connelly speak? Me, too. I’d leave him trapped, because even powerfully grating voices like his can’t travel six centuries.
• A.I.’s Frances O’Connor looks like an elf. And I don’t mean a cute elf, but a gnarly elf with food poisoning and gonorrhea.
• Paul Walker — the himbo star of The Fast and the Furious franchise — is a truly terrible actor. But he is prettier than any of the females in the movie, which is never a good sign. —Rod Lott