This is a truly awful adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel Timeline. The book itself is not as strong as Jurassic Park or Prey; it reads like an overenthusiastic action thriller movie, which is a bit shallow for a book, but should make a great basis for an overenthusiastic action thriller movie.
The movie is rushed, shallow, poorly acted, almost totally dis-joined from the story of the book, and whereas the book stretches credibility at times, the movie totally crushes suspension of disbelief.
Crichton's book has well fleshed out, if somewhat annoying characters, more-or-less believable relationships, solid pseudo-physics, solid pseudo-history and at its core a good 'what-if?' story. There are enough extraneous bits to the story to allow it to be pared down to a good 2-hr movie without damaging the basic story or premise.
The movie plays like a high school theatresports troupe ad-libbing their way through Hamlet having read the play once. And the sets aren't much better. It completely misses many of Crichton's best points, and is thoroughly ham-fisted with the few plot elements it retains.
I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, but this was painful.
The movie is rushed, shallow, poorly acted, almost totally dis-joined from the story of the book, and whereas the book stretches credibility at times, the movie totally crushes suspension of disbelief.
Crichton's book has well fleshed out, if somewhat annoying characters, more-or-less believable relationships, solid pseudo-physics, solid pseudo-history and at its core a good 'what-if?' story. There are enough extraneous bits to the story to allow it to be pared down to a good 2-hr movie without damaging the basic story or premise.
The movie plays like a high school theatresports troupe ad-libbing their way through Hamlet having read the play once. And the sets aren't much better. It completely misses many of Crichton's best points, and is thoroughly ham-fisted with the few plot elements it retains.
I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, but this was painful.