Time Machine, The (2002)

The 1895 novel by HG Wells was a cautionary tale about class-based society as much as a work of speculative fiction.

Not that you’d know it from this movie, scripted and directed by Wells’ great-grandson Simon; the political overtones have been brushed aside in this new version, reducing it to a vacuous Hollywood blockbuster.

The nightmare future world is explained away by a nuclear mishap on the moon, with the rightful order of American hegemony preposterously restored at the very end.

While the movie isn’t particularly believable, it is intermittently entertaining. Guy Pearce is excellent in the role of Alexander Hartdegen, the bereaved absent-minded professor who builds the time machine in 1899 in an effort to go back in time and prevent the death of his fiancée, Emma (Sienna Guillory), who was shot during a robbery in Central Park four years ago.

An accident sends Alex 800,000 years into the future, where humanity’s folly has split the human race into above-ground hunter-gatherers, the Eloi, and subterranean, meat-eating monsters with the bodies of professional wrestlers, the Morlocks.

There, he invests in the plight of the nature-loving, Native American-ish Eloi and the lovely exotic Mara (pop singer Samantha Mumba), who explains their world to him while running around in see-through scraps of clothing.

At least these creatures in the geographical spot that used to be New York City did know enough to hang onto slabs of stone from the past that spell out “Tiffany & Co” and “Brooklyn Bridge” and other recognisable Manhattan landmarks.

The film doesn’t give us a clear enough idea of Alex’s quest (Why must we die? Why can’t history be changed?) Alex never voices the fear that science has wrought what he must try to rectify. And Pearce just doesn’t get across the idea that he feels loss or pain or grief very well.

He staggers around like a convincingly stunned mullet, in stark contrast to the American non-actors around him.

Jeremy Irons is brilliant as the bulging-brained Uber-Morlock, even though his role is confined to a few minutes near the end.

The only other character of interest is the time machine itself, a resplendent prop that took 20 people over three months to build.

This gleaming, brassy machine is the best-looking time machine to grace celluloid since the TARDIS.

Irons and Pearce act without fault, but not well enough to overshadow the movie’s flaws. The script is preposterous, a meandering, over-simplified mess with an illogical, timid ending.

The production design ranges from garish to downright silly.

Laws of physics and common sense are broken willy-nilly. Worst of all is the overreliance on special effects, which only makes vast tracts of the movie look fake.

If only it didn’t take itself so seriously, this could have been a fine B-movie.

The problem is, all the B-movies think they’re A-movies these days, to the extent that there’s not enough irony to go around. If you’ve run out of comedies to rent, then The Time Machine could afford you and some drunken friends a couple of hours’ distraction.

Just be ready for the inevitable consequences of hurling everything within arm’s reach at the screen.

Alexander Hartdegen
Guy Pearce
David Philby
Mark Addy
Mrs Watchit
Phyllida Law
Emma
Sienna Guillory
Vox
Orlando Jones
Mara
Samantha Mumba
Kalen
Omero Mumba
Toren
Yancey Arias
Flower Store Worker
Alan Young
Über-Morlock
Jeremy Irons
Morlocks
Richard Cetrone
Edward Conna
Chris Sayour
Jeremy Fitzgerald
Darrell Davis
Grady Holder
Bryan Friday
Clint Lilley
Mark Kubr
Jeff Podgurski
Dan McCann
Bryon Weiss
Steve Upton
Doug Jones
Joey Anaya
Jacob Chambers
Dorian Kingi
Kevin McTurk
Eloi
Michael Chaturantabut
Jonathan Eusebio
Roel Failma
Yoshio Iizuka
Diana Lee Inosanto
Chona Jason
Hiro Koda
John Koyama
Gail Monian
R.C. Ormond
Maro Uo Richmond
Petra Sprecher
Gary Toy
Jon Valera

Director
Simon Wells

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