Timeline (2003)

“There’s one thing worse than dying here, and that’s living here. ” – Kate

Number of Times Seen – 2 (23 Sep 2004 and 7 Aug 2017)

Brief Synopsis – A group of historical researchers get sent back in time in order to save their professor who is trapped in 14th Century France

My Take on it – I have always been a fan of time travel stories and was quite excited to read this novel back in 2003.

The novel was great and when I had the opportunity to see this film, I jumped at the chance.

I recall hating it because it differed so much from the story presented in the novel.

13 years on and I decided to give it another chance since maybe time would help make this film better.

It didn’t.

It truly is a mess and so many of the plot points in the novel that I remembered just were overlooked here.

In essence they took a Michael Crichton idea and cannibalized it for the screen.

I can completely understand why Crichton himself would disown this film adaptation (see trivia below).

None of teh characters really stick out here besides Billy Connely and he is sorely underused.

The biggest problem here is that they had a great premise to work with and they just gutted it in order to make it seem more Hollywoodish which takes so much away from it all.

Maybe if I find some time in the near future, I’ll reread the novel since I recall it dealing with this premise so much better than what they ended up filming.

This was truly a waste of time.

Read the novel if you want to see this premise done right!

Bottom Line – terrible adaptation of a fun Crichton novel. I understand why he himself disowned the film. None of the characters really stand out besides Connelly and he doesn’t get enough to do. The premise could have worked had they done a better job adapting the savvy novel, but too much was changed and turned it into a typical Hollywood style story. Truly a mistake on their part.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Michael Crichton, author of the same-titled book off which this movie is based, disliked this movie so much that he refused to licence any more movies based off of his novels. Nobody would gain the movie rights to a Michael Crichton book until Steven Spielberg, long-time friend of Michael Crichton, bought the rights to ‘Pirate Latitudes’ after Crichton’s death. (From IMDB)

Rating – Razzie Worthy

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