Movie Review
'Timeline': Oh, to turn back time and not have seen this

By Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times staff reporter

	STEPHEN VAUGHAN Frances O'Connor, left, and Paul Walker in "Timeline," about archaeology students who go back to medieval times to rescue their professor from a feudal war.
	E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

Anyway, so there they are, ready to go, risking their lives and testing the limits of science and trying to look really, really serious, and some helpful person in the lab shouts out, "You all look great, by the way!" Not to be outdone, somebody else, perhaps a dropout from the campus screenwriting program, contributes to the general high-tech atmosphere by warning, "Everyone be careful!" More warnings are issued, buttons are pressed, and off they all go down the electronic rabbit-hole, an experience that looks comparable to an automatic car wash.

Movie review Showtimes and trailer * "Timeline," with Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, Billy Connolly. Directed by Richard Donner, from a screenplay by Jeff Maguire and George Nolfi, based on the novel by Michael Crichton. 116 minutes. Rated PG-13 for intense battle sequences and brief language. Several theaters.

Surely Michael Crichton's novel, on which the film is based, couldn't possibly be this silly; surely the idea of casting wild-eyed Scotsman Connolly and surfer dude Paul Walker as father and son must have been hatched on a dare; surely the reason poor Frances O'Connor (as the token female on the excursion) keeps wildly swiveling her head around is because she's looking for rescue from this movie. "Do we look like quantum wormhole specialists?" she asks someone sternly, and if I had a dime for every time somebody's asked me that question ... well, I'd buy a ticket to some other movie.

Never mind the plot holes and the non sequiturs; "Timeline" is an accidental comedy trapped in sci-fi/action garb, like those actors swathed in their medieval tunics, stumbling and lurching along. The lab is full of Bill Gates-ish guys in button-down shirts and glasses, yelling at each other like some Microsoft staff meeting gone horribly wrong; the medieval scenes seem stuffed full of extras from "Braveheart." Everyone in this movie heroically manages to refrain from giggling; pity I can't say the same.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company