“There’s one thing worse than dying here, and that’s living here.”

Justin’s rating: Mr. Peabody would be so, so disappointed with this

Justin’s review: While there have been movies based on techno-thriller author Michael Crichton going all the way back to 1971’s Andromeda Strain, it was the runaway success of Jurassic Park that lit a fire under Hollywood to adapt everything and anything it could from his works.

This… this did not go as well as hoped. Audiences were soon flooded with bizarre bombs and mixed results in the ’90s, including 1993’s The Rising Sun, 1994’s Disclosure, 1995’s Congo, 1997’s The Lost World, 1998’s Sphere, and 1999’s The 13th Warrior. This culminated in one final stab at a Crichton revival with 2003’s Timeline, a movie that could’ve been pretty amazing if history itself broke for it rather than against.

I mean, look at Timeline’s virtues, aside from Crichton’s well-known if somewhat battered namesake. The studio pumped in $80 million and hired Director Richard Donner (Superman II, Ladyhawke) to help sell this time traveling adventure. An adventure, I might add, that starred Paul Walker (The Fast and Furious), Frances O’Connor (A.I.), Gerard Butler (Greenland), Billy Connolly, David Thewlis, Neal McDonough, and Ethan Embry. So what didn’t the audiences like, and is there a redemption story to a time-traveling movie reviewer who’s dialing back two decades to see this?

Let’s start with the setup. In modern day, a group of archeologists are digging around a castle site in France. When their leader, Professor Johnston (Connolly) gets called into a meeting with the mysterious company sponsoring the dig, he disappears — only to have the archaeologist team discover his bifocals in the dig itself and a note from 1357 AD saying, “Help me.”

It turns out that this company, ITC, has opened the door to time travel via wormholes, one of which is connected to France during the Hundred Years War. The diggers, desperate to rescue the good Professor and being somewhat experts on the time period, agree to jump back to 1357 on a rescue mission. Of course, the company is eeeeeeevil and has ulterior motives.

After rapidly glossing over the time travel rules and science in order to rush us to the past, Timeline changes gears pretty hard to become a medieval adventure film. There’s a bit of romance, an expected castle battle scene, knights riding people down, and so many deliberate changes to history that I’m surprised the present didn’t butterfly effect us into oblivion.

I should also mention that one of the guys gets shot up with arrows, activates his “marker” to get recalled, and promptly lets loose a live grenade that blows up the time machine. Why does he have a live grenade when they just made a huge deal out of the fact you couldn’t bring back weapons? Shhh little baby, don’t you cry. Also, don’t question anything here.

I was laughing my head off at how quickly the company swindles these archaeology students to go into the past without fully explaining anything. Everyone acts so gung-ho that their future knowledge will give them an edge, which would install me with more confidence had they brought back assault rifles and tasers. Anyway, about half the team promptly gets killed upon arriving in 1357, the other half arrested, and I officially stopped rooting for any of these idiots. All of our surviving heroes go on mini-murder sprees, bucking one of the big rules of time travel and presumably wiping out entire future generations of people.

Perhaps the greatest eyerolling moment out of so many was when the group practically bullies this meek archaeologist to go on the mission with them because he speaks French. Then they take away his glasses right before they leave, making him blind. And then, the second they’re captured and he trots out his French-speaking ability, he gets stabbed right through the stomach with a sword for being a “spy.” That dude is having a HARD day.

You would think that a movie trying to sell you both on theoretical science and an actual historical conflict would’ve taken pains to research and represent both as accurately as possible. You would be vastly overthinking the amount of work these filmmakers were willing to do.

Timeline got absolutely eviscerated* at its launch for all of the historical inaccuracies, especially after practically daring everyone watching it to fact check this stuff. If you’re going to make a stupid, light-hearted time travel adventure that plays fast and loose with history, then don’t take on airs. Just be Bill and Ted.

Especially don’t make up a fake town and a fake battle that’s set during a real conflict during a real year — which is what they did. And certainly don’t try to speak modern day French or English to people hundreds of years in the past while pretending that language drift didn’t happen — which is also what they did.

I suppose there’s some cheesy fun to be had here, but not that much in my opinion. Richard Donner’s made some fine flicks, which is why I’m stunned at how badly this is shot, plotted, and edited. There’s an unnerving herky-jerky pace pulling the viewer along, with lots of little moments not making sense punctuated with hokey dialogue.

I’d like to pit Timeline against A Sound of Thunder to see which would win “Worst Time Travel Movie of the Early 2000s.” Maybe there is no winner in that situation, only losers who bought tickets to see them.

*Possibly by Jurassic Park’s inaccurate velociraptors, which were all clever girls.

Intermission!

• Gigantic wounds don’t bleed, I guess
• “This guy looks like a paper doll that got cut up and put back together.”
• I love Billy Connolly’s adorable castle model
• Girls love it when you bring them a half a beer
• Archaeologists can have a moment where people run toward a dig and get super-excited as if this was a time sensitive situation
• You’re the first people in a room that hasn’t been touched for 600 years, you best Touch All The Things with bare hands
• I totally didn’t recognize Ethan Embry for a couple minutes when he first appeared
• Oh that 2003-era iMac
• They made a transporter with mirrors? Must be some very shiny mirrors.
• “Personally I don’t care about the hows and the whys!” I’m pretty sure the audience cares VERY MUCH about the hows and the whys.
• Yeah let’s take the glasses away from the guy who is functionally blind without them
• Time travel makes you look like you’re on a rollercoaster, screaming and holding hands
• About the only realistic part of this movie is the fact that Ethan Embry’s character took one look at the ridiculous nature of this time travel and nope’d right the heck out
• Well we graduated to murder pretty quickly there, didn’t we? Sure hope he wasn’t your ancestor!
• Wait, the Professor knows how to make Greek fire now? That’s quite the trick.