Timeline

Reviewed by Rich Drees

     When a 600 year old message from his father his found in an archaeological dig in France, Chris Johnston (Paul Weller) learns that his father (Billy Connolly) is stranded in the past due to a faulty time travel experiment by a large technology company who had been financing his dig. With a small group of archeologists and historians, he heads back to the 100 Years War to rescue his father. But they soon find out that their 21^st Century knowledge may not be enough to ensure their survival.

     As imaginative as novelist Michael Crichton’s stories can be, they often follow the same formula- a corporation develops some new technology that goes haywire and has to bring in a team of scientists to save the day. The latest film adaptation from a Crichton novel, Timeline, is no different in that respect, but it does succeed over other Crichton adaptations, with more depth to the characters. The paleontologists of Jurassic Park, after getting over their initial surprise of discovering live dinosaurs, have no trouble quickly accepting their situation and using their wits and knowledge to escape. The archaeologists of Timeline however, receive a rather rude awakening when they discover that their knowledge of the era that they’ve studied and in some cases romanticized about may not be enough to help them escape. They have a definite sense of danger and what’s at stake. One false step could potentially change history in vast and incalculable ways. They also learn early on that life in the 1300s is cheap. Some of them, when confronted with having to kill to save their friends express remorse, shock or guilt. Hardly behavior we’ve seen from typical action heroes.

     The film sets ups its exposition adroitly, never stopping the movie dead in its tracks to explain the historical period we’ll be traveling to. A few story twists are set up early on that those familiar with time travel tales may see coming, but are still enjoyable nevertheless. The only disappointing thing in the script is the underdevelopment of a subplot involving some company representatives who had traveled to the past before.

     Director Richard Donner’s work is much stronger here than in his last outing 2000’s The Musketeer. Gone are the wire-assisted acrobatics of that film’s action sequences for a much more realistic depiction of period warfare. While not as epic and intense as the computer-generated armies of Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings, the warfare sequences definitely carry a feeling of verisimilitude that help carry the picture.