Not only is it set during the Hundred Years' War, it feels like it lasts 100 years.
If nothing else, the new fantasy/sci-fi/adventure movie “Timeline” proves one thing: Being chased by a medieval knight is a lot less thrilling than being chased by a T. rex.
Novelist Michael Crichton, the man who convinced us that dinosaurs could be conjured up from a scrap of DNA in “Jurassic Park,” also wrote the book on which “Timeline” is based. His work typically can be classified as a brainy beach read — that is, the story is very accessible, but a certain amount of smarts has gone into writing it, so that even the most outlandish ideas seem somehow credible. Unfortunately, this movie goes straight for the beach-read part and ignores any vestige of anything else.
Here's the intriguing premise: Comely archaeologist Gerard Butler (who's playing the Phantom in the film version of the musical “The Phantom of the Opera”) and his even comelier student interns, Paul Walker (“2Fast 2Furious”) and Frances O'Connor (“Artificial Intelligence: AI”), travel back to 14th-century France to rescue their professor and leader, played by Billy Connolly. They get there via a machine invented by an ultra-high-tech — and ultimately, of course, evil — corporation. They've been summoned for the job because the professor is trapped in the exact same place as their archaeological dig — a place called Castelgard — and presumably they know the territory.
“Sounds like theme park,” someone says of the name. Looks like one, too. The peasants all have good teeth and remarkably clean clothes. You half expect to see Goofy in the background, headed to his shift in Fantasyland.
The Middle Ages, as some of us might remember, were a time of disease (did the kids remember to take their plague pills?), poverty and knights who would as soon kill you as look at you. But there's none of that texture here. “Timeline” is little more than a series of chases, captures and escapes, over and over again.
Plus, the movie looks cheap. Extras wander around aimlessly in the background (if this were a Monty Python movie, it would be intentional and hilarious, but it's not and it's not). The time-travel device looks like something out of an old “Star Trek” episode, circa William Shatner. And, in “Star Trek” tradition, a couple of bit players are beamed — I mean sent — to accompany the stars so they can be killed immediately.
The most disappointing aspect of “Timeline” is that it's directed by Richard Donner, who not only made the “Lethal Weapon” flicks but also directed one of the best medieval movies ever made: “Ladyhawke,” starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Rutger Hauer and Matthew Broderick. He seems to have lost his touch — or perhaps his interest. As fantasy-adventures go, Peter Jackson's “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy makes this one look like a Hobbit belch.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
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