Fifteen years ago Timeline hit the movie screens. Based on the novel of the same name by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton, Timeline dealt with a group of archeologists working a castle ruin site in present day France where the French overthrew the English occupying force back in the 1300s. When the leader of the expedition (Billy Connoly) starts getting suspicious about his backers--who keep giving them amazing tips on where to find things that nobody could know the location of--he goes back to the US to speak with them. After his father has been gone without a trace for several days, the expedition leader’s son Chris (Paul Walker) calls the backers to demand to know the whereabouts of his father.
Chris travels to the headquarters of the expedition’s backers, which is a tech company that has managed to invent a time machine. This was how they were able to give the expedition in France such good tips, because they traveled back in time to the actual battle in the 1300s. It’s explained that they didn’t so much invent a time machine but rather they discovered a fixed wormhole that stretches back to only this specific time and place. The company had sent teams back in time, dressed in the period clothing, to explore the era. The problem for Chris is that his father demanded to travel back in time, and wound up getting lost there.
And so Chris, Kate (Frances O’Connor), Marek (Gerard Butler), François (Rossif Sutherland), and Frank (Neal McDonough) form a rescue team to go back in the past to medieval France to bring back Billy Connoly. What could possibly go wrong?
Michael Crichton’s novel was rich in both history as well as scientific theory. When you went back in time with the crew in the book, Crichton really made you feel like you were in 1300s France. And it wasn’t a romanticized version, either, but rather a gritty, down to earth look at life in the mud--which was what most people back then had to deal with. Tyranny was everywhere, mainly in the form of English troops barking orders to the downtrodden. Through his sharp description of realistic medieval times and people, Crichton excelled at making the reader extremely grateful to be living in these modern times.
Director Richard Donner (the 1978 Superman, the Lethal Weapon films) does a good job at compressing most of the book’s sprawling narrative, while still keeping important exposition. The problem is that the story comes off as being a little rushed at times, with people shouting much-needed exposition at each other just before running for their lives from knights on horseback who are trying to run them through. Donner was required to recut his film several times to please the studio, so that may explain the rushed pacing, especially in the first half.
Still, despite its flaws, I enjoy Timeline very much. It remains a fun romp; a good popcorn film, if nothing else. And the film still holds up very well in spite of it now being fifteen years old. It should have broad appeal for fans of science fiction and historical stories--as well as frequent visitors to renaissance fairs (both the film and renaissance fairs share the same aspect: they have the theme of modern day people mingling with those in the medieval past). Timeline would be the penultimate movie in Richard Donner’s long and storied career with 16 Blocks being the last film he directed thus far.
Paul Walker went on to greater fame as the star of the Fast and the Furious films, until his untimely death in a car crash in 2013. Gerard Butler would also go on to bigger things, like 300, Olympus Has Fallen, and London Has Fallen. Frances O’Connor has also kept busy, starring in Mr. Selfridge, The Conjuring 2, and Cleverman over the years. Billy Connoly has also kept working, starring in X-Files: I Want To Believe, Brave, and The Hobbitt: The Battle of the Five Armies. And the villainous Lord Oliver in this film was played by Michael Sheen, who went on to star in Underworld (released the same year as Timeline), Frost/Nixon, along with the recent Passengers.
Some interesting tidbits: although they had no scenes together in the film, David Thewlis (who played Doniger) and Anna Friel (the Lady Claire) fell in love during the shooting and have remained together ever since. And the late Michael Crichton reportedly hated the movie version of Timeline so much that he stopped offering his books for sale to the studios. --SF
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