With that original movie being one of my favorite films, I was actually looking forward to the remake that was originally slated to hit theaters at the end of 2001. But, 9/11 happened and the filmmakers decided to edit one major effects sequence out of the movie, which caused it to be delayed until the beginning of 2002.
When all was said and done, the flick opened really strong with a pretty decent opening weekend, but went downhill from there as people began to actually think about the movie they just saw and the flaws became very apparent.
The Movie
Moving the setting for the movie from London to New York is just one of the changes in this new vision of The Time Machine that was directed by Simon Wells, the great grandson of H.G. Wells.
Guy Pearce is Alexander Hartdegen here, which is yet another change from the first person narrative that used in the George Pal movie. When a mugger kills his girlfriend, the brilliant scientist decides to build a time machine to go back and change history. What he doesn't realize that he can't change what happened because her death caused him to create the time machine in the first place.
Oh, it gets better. There are more holes in this movie than a block of Swiss cheese.
A few examples, of many in the movie, include a scene where the Time Machine is speeding through the centuries and everything outside is moving super fast - except the planes in the sky that are moving at normal speed. Later in the movie when Alex arrives in the far, far, future and runs into the super-evolved talking psychic Morlock played by Jeremy Irons, he outsmarts him. If this super-evolved talking Morlock can read minds, why didn't he see what Hatdegen was planning?
The more you think about this movie, the worse it gets.
However.
If you lobotomize yourself before going in and empty your mind of any rational or logical thought, the movie can be a fun and mindless 90-minute sci-fi romp, but don't expect it even get close to the original novel or the 60's version.
With a script that looks like it was put through a paper shredder and then taped back together, the only thing you really have left are the effects, and they are only passable. The time traveling stuff looks "ok", and there is a very cool scene towards the middle of the movie involving the moon breaking up (the original scene was longer and had to be cut) that is one of the highlights in the film. But the Morlock stuff is bad.
These things look like badly deformed monkeys, and as much as I love monkeys, these are neither cute nor funny. The creepy blue ones from the original movie are still freaky. Just look at these comparison pictures:
6 out of 10
The Video
Continuing their trend of solid DVD transfers, Dreamworks has given The Time Machine a very good 2.35:1 anamorphic job. Aside from just a tiny bit of grain that I noticed in the nighttime park scene early in the flick, image quality is very strong with amazing detail, strong colors, and no visible compression problems.
9 out of 10
The Audio
As one would expect from a Dreamworks disc, the DVD includes a choice of Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS soundtracks.
Both mixes are pretty good with action coming out of all five channels, and as usual the DTS track does sound a little "clearer" than the Dolby mix, but here it isn't as noticeable as on some other discs so if you happen to not have DTS on your receiver you won't be missing too much.
Your sub will thump here and there with some decent LFE effects, and Klaus Badelt's score (one of the few good things about the movie) sounds better than ever.
9 out of 10
The Extras
This is one of those DVDs where the feature list on the back of the box actually makes it look better than it actually is.
To begin with, there are two separate audio commentaries to listen to, although both are merely average. If you want to hear about the movie itself, there's one with director Simon Wells and editor Wayne Wahrman. For insight into the effects, the second commentary track includes producer David Valdez, effects supervisor Jamie Price, and production designer Oliver Scholl.
Moving on to the "documentaries", you find that they are simply promotional featurettes that are themed to a different subject. "Building the Time Machine", "Creating the Morlocks", and "Visual Effects by Digital Domain" each run five to over seven minutes and feature behind the scenes interviews, but can't escape that promotional tone that gives you the feeling that these were part of a larger cable special (on HBO or Showtime) and were then just chopped up for the DVD release.
There is one deleted scene that is an extended/alternate version of the opening scene, but the effects sequences involving the moon slamming into New York that were edited out because of 9/11 are nowhere to be found on the disc. Next up is a storyboard sequence of the "Hunt" scene that is set to music. It can be viewed with or without commentary.
Rounding out the disc is a short fight choreography featurette, still galleries with concept art, the film's teaser trailer, theatrical trailer, and the international trailer.
7 out of 10