Timeline

Based on the novel by Michael Crichton, Timeline follows several archealogical students – Paul Walker’s Chris, Frances O’Connor’s Kate, Gerard Butler’s Andre, and Rossif Sutherland’s Francois – as they’re forced to travel back through time in an attempt to save their stranded professor (Billy Connolly). Though Richard Donner tries his hardest to infuse the proceedings with a larger-than-life, downright epic sensibility, the filmmaker’s efforts are consistently undermined by a sporadically absurd screenplay (by Jeff Maguire and George Nolfi) and a pair of almost disastrously ineffective lead performances. In terms of the latter, Walker and particularly O’Connor prove to be absolutely and utterly unable to convincingly step into the shoes of their respective characters, which ultimately makes it impossible to work up anything even resembling a rooting interest in their continued survival. It consequently goes without saying that the film suffers considerably when it’s focused solely on their exploits, although – on the flipside – there’s little doubt that Butler’s expectedly strong work does provide Timeline with an all-too-welcome respite from an otherwise pervadingly mediocre atmosphere (this is despite a thoroughly misguided sequence in which his character hits on a local minutes after arriving in the past). The movie’s overwhelmingly uninvolving modus operandi – which is certainly surprising, given the strength of the source material – ensures that one has mentally checked out by the time the expansive climactic battle rolls around, and it’s inevitably clear that the whole thing ranks as one of the least effective Crichton adaptations to date.

** out of ****