The Time Machine (2002)
Directed by Simon Wells
Hoping to alter the events of the past, a 19th-century inventor instead travels 800,000 years into the future, where he finds mankind divided into two warring races.
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McDowell played Wells as the inventor who used his machine to hunt Jack the Ripper through time called Time After Time.
(He got some help from Gore Verbinski, director of "The Mexican."
Simon Wells -- great-grandson of H.G. Wells -- directed most of the film, with Gore Verbinski ( "The Mexican," "Mouse Hunt") taking over for the last couple weeks of shooting.
For not only did he reportedly suffer from physical exhaustion while shooting the film (with an uncredited Gore Verbinski - "The Mexican" - being called in to finish the last days of shooting), but he's also likely to feel ill upon seeing some critical and public reaction to his effort, or at least the second half thereof.
Perhaps this erratic editing and untidy storytelling can be attributed to the fact that Simon Wells had some kind of breakdown on the set and was replaced by director Gore Verbinski ( "The Mexican" ) for the last few weeks of shooting.
The Time Machine is so sloppy that it makes Kate and Leopold look like Back to the Future.
While the original novel was, well, novel in its day, so many time travel films have come along since then - including the "Back to the Future" and "Terminator" pictures as well as the terrific "Time After Time" - that the basic concept seems somewhat quaint, humdrum and/or basically unremarkable.
That’s probably why The Time Machine, based on H.G. Wells’ literary masterpiece and the 1960 George Pal movie, delighted me --- despite its deviations from these two sources.
The Time Machine is a movie only a 10-year-old boy could love, and it's likely that many will -- it's the kind of giddy, overstuffed fantasy that taps into a child's sense of adventure in ways that slicker, more streamlined vehicles like Tomb Raider never even attempt.
Previous versions of the story, "The Time Machine" were released in 1960 (theatrical release) and 1978 (made for TV movie).
And now we have another cinematic take on H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine, directed by Wells’s great-grandson Simon Wells ( The Prince of Egypt ) — who owes everyone in his family a big apology.
No wonder then that hopes were so high for this second big-screen adaptation of "The Time Machine".
Not only must this latest version of The Time Machine satisfy fans of H.G. Well's science fiction masterpiece, but it must do so without trodding on George Pal's much-loved 1960 film adaptation in the bargain.
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In the supporting cast, Orlando Jones ( The Replacements ) is hilarious as a 21st century holographic know-it-all, and Mark Addy ( The Full Monty ) does a nice turn as Hartdegen's friend from the 1800s.
In films like "Kate & Leopold" or "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" that use time travel, it is permissible to skip the science because it is secondary to what those films are actually about (Meg Ryan being cute and Mike Myers being funny, respectively).
Once he realizes that going back is to no avail, he travels forward where he encounters some decent but brief laughs for the viewer, as well as Orlando Jones ("Evolution," "Double Take") playing a futuristic and holographic librarian with a funny riff on H.G. Wells and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
In films like "Kate & Leopold" or "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" that use time travel, it is permissible to skip the science because it is secondary to what those films are actually about (Meg Ryan being cute and Mike Myers being funny, respectively).
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Were it not for a sloppy conclusion that attempts to mate Gene Roddenberryish sci-fi mysticism with the otherwise straightforward narrative, it might be a giddy, guilty pleasure along the lines of Stephen Sommers' 1999 remake of The Mummy.
Wells' background is in animation; he co-directed "The Prince of Egypt" and was a supervising animator on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," overseeing that film's merger of live action and computer-generated effects.