I now blog over at The Eyre Guide! This blog is an archive of my past posts.


Friday, September 27, 2013

Film Review: The Time Machine

Posted by Charlene // Tags: , , ,
Because the original 60s adaptation of The Time Machine was a long wait in my Netflix queue, I decided to watch the 2002 adaptation instead.  This version starred Guy Pearce as the Time Traveler (or Alex), Sienna Guillory, Samantha Mumba, and Jeremy Irons.

There are many changes made to the story in this film.  The main character has a name now - Alex - and he's a professor in America who's seems rather shy and nerdy but is in love with beautiful Emma and just after he proposes to her and she accepts, something terrible happens and she dies.  Now Alex is moved to make the time machine to go back and prevent Emma's death which as it turns out, he can not because she ends up dying another way.  Alex travels into the future to try and find out why you can't change the past and then comes across the Eloi and Morlocks.

The movie gives a completely different character arc to the time traveller and a completely new twist on the Eloi and Morlocks.  The Eloi are still the Morlock's prey but the Eloi are more human and the Morlock's are considerably less human - downright scary actually.  They are crazy powerful and some have developed psychic powers.  The evolution of the Morlocks and the Eloi are a little shrouded in mystery, and I missed having that sense of scientific logic behind their development.  There's really not much in the way of real logic in this story though.  There's quite a few plot holes, and it's rather cheesy and cliche too.  The plot is very predictable, even though it only takes elements from the original book.  It's entertaining at times because of the action, and the creepiness of the Morlocks, and I thought the time elapse effects and how they showed time travel was really cool, but overall as a film, I can't say I was very impressed with this one.

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8 comments:

  1. Samantha Mumba? I thought she was an Irish popstar from the 90's!

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    1. I never heard of her before, but I looked her up and yes it is the same person! She was an Eloi in this - I thought she did a good job. There was no singing in this film sadly - I might have enjoyed it more! :)

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  2. I totally agree..some weird choices..I like the cheesy 1950's version more LOL

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    1. Aw, I wish I could have seen it in time! Hopefully I will get to it someday though!

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  3. This is the only story I know since I haven't read the book. I had no idea how different it was!

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    1. Yeah, it's pretty crazy how much was changed! Did you like this film though?

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  4. I watched this movie years ago because I had read the book, but I fell asleep! It's genuinely that bad.

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    1. Haha! Yes, I can totally see why you would fall asleep - it's just pretty predictable.

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