A bit of background: I read Michael Crichton’s bestseller a while back and was eagerly waiting for a faithful adaptation. Well, was I screwed?
Richard Donner helmed the project. In better times, he directed classics such as Lethal Weapon and Superman. He basically sat down and waited for 5 years for a come back. Enter Timeline.
Serving Richard the whole guilt thing will be unfair though. Paul Walker (the car driver in The Fast and the Furious) deserves as much credit as Richard. His performance needs to be seen to be believed! Unless you decide to skip the movie completely. I’ll understand.
The time line, er… I meant, plot line seems complicated but it’s not. Time travel is complicated for some people – I don’t see why. It’s been in a 100 movies already, including Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Timecop. I’d accept any (even completely prepostoreous) premises in my hope to get a good 90 or so minutes.
Back to the plot: a greedy corporation, ITC, develops a way to go back to the past. Their plans: create AUTHENTIC theme parks in the past (that’s what the “good” book says). The protagonists are a bunch of college professors mingled with grad students for good measure. They digging an ITC sponsored site along the Dordogne river in France. Eventually, the Professor (Billy Connolly) goes to ITC HQ and is … gasp … beamed back. Since he doesn’t come back, the evil corporation turns to his students for help and beams them too. All credit about this thoughtful setup goes to Michael Crichton: if the students find the professor – great, if not – we have no witnesses to bother us.
Quick forward to Castelgard on the Dordogne, anno 1357. An evil English Lord by the name of Oliver (no relation to Oliver Cromwell or Stone) is about to be besieged by the brave and fair French resistance … knights. Donner’s sympathies are clearly on the side of the French, the book doesn’t paint them in black and white.
Another fast forward to our protagonists changing sides and taking part in a real medieval siege. There are no important relationships developed or severed. The movie tries to develop an “amour” between Marek and the Lady Claire which is OK. If Marek is to stay in the past (as it’s his wish), he needs someone to cook, clean the house, and even teach him French.
I recently read the book again and I didn’t feel great about it this time. Maybe it’s a book you’re supposed to read only once. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about the movie. If you’re a history buff and you’d like to know what the Middle ages were like, you’re steer clear of this one. I mean Monty Python and the Holy Grail may not be as believable but it’s certainly more fun!
…You do know they slaughtered the book for the movie and the director should be burned and the book is a great book, right? thought so.
I saw the movie before the book and the book was definately better. I liked the whole different universes thing as opposed to the wormhole locked on that specific time and place. The movie was not as smart or thrilling as the book but the battle scenes were awesome. Also the book was more realistic as it did not paint the french and english white and black ie. good and evil.
the movie is a laughingstock. terrible acting. absolutely terrible. plus they changed the characters around so much, it hardly resembles the book. and did i mention terrible acting?
i would really like to see someone more qualified make a new timeline film. actually invest some money in it. it really has a lot of potential, if it is done right.
Ironically, Terry Jones is quite knowledgeable about medieval times (I think he even actually did some formal post-secondary studies on the historical period, although don’t quote me on that), which I believe is partially why years ago my excellent high school history teacher remarked that the best film representations of how medieval life actually looked were likely contained in the works of the Monty Python troupe. So, Holy Grail would likely be more historically accurate in many ways too
Personally for me it was with “Timeline” (the book; I’ll admit, I’ve never seen the movie) that Crichton stopped being particularly interesting and respectable as an author. It’s quite possible he’ll write another intelligent, well-crafted novel, but as of now I find “Airframe” to be the last of his truly good works, and even that one was quite far below the high level of his earlier novels.