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Review: The Time Traveler's Wife brings on the bare Bana butt
Romance and science fiction don't seem to mix too well sometimes.
Maybe the last time that they did really well was in Ghost, a fine blend of humor, drama, romance and sexiness, with a guy caught in the world of death who is trying to warn his wife but can do so only through a psychic.
Maybe it's not surprising that The Time Traveler's Wife is written by the guy who won the Oscar for penning Ghost, Bruce Joel Rubin. He also wrote Jacob's Ladder, The Last Mimsy, Deep Impact and Stuart Little 2.
This is no Ghost, but it's a nice adaptation of the hit first-time novel by Audrey Niffenegger. It's also funny, dramatic, romantic and sexy, but it has a layer of schmaltz, too.
Director Robert Schwentke keeps insisting everywhere in interviews, and even in the press notes, that "this is not science fiction." Perhaps because of the utterly preposterous premise that these time-traveling trips are supposed to be some sort of genetic defect has no basis in science at all, he doesn't even attempt an explanation. It's a genetic defect that was initially triggered by stress, and the character fades in and out of time without any control, landing in the new time zone without a stitch of clothes on every time.
This may be just another excuse for getting Hulk and Star Trek movie star Eric Bana to show up naked in a lot of scenes (which he does, but mostly from the back side). As the lead character, Henry, he is plagued by this instantaneous time-traveling and then has to find clothes right away, no matter where he lands.
The film feels a bit like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, so it's not surprising that Brad Pitt (nominated for an Oscar for that acting role) is listed as one of the producers. It also has the feel of The Fountain, but it's not as dreadfully boring. And, it's not half as bad as that Sandra Bullock/Keanu Reeves mailbox time-travel clunker The Lake House.
The romance between Henry and Clare (played by Rachel McAdams, who will also be in the upcoming Sherlock Holmes film) starts when a 6-year-old Clare finds a naked Henry in a field in her backyard. If that's not strange enough, he then meets Clare as an adult, and she throws herself at him, and he hasn't a clue who she is. He apparently told her throughout her young life that they would be meeting in the future and getting married.
She even told Henry the name of a doctor that he would eventually seek out—a Dr. Kendrick, played by Stephen Tobolowsky, who was in Freaky Friday, Groundhog Day and Spaceballs.
Time traveling does get Henry into awkward moments. He zaps out of his wedding twice, once coming back with slightly graying temples just in time to exchange vows. He also is found by his friend Gomez (played by Ron Livingston) outside a bar in a pink girl's shirt and tight shorts, beating up a homophobe. George immediately thinks that Henry has a big secret to hide—little does he know how big it really is.
The schmaltzy stuff happens when distant thunder rumbles just when something bad is going to happen, and when fireworks light the skies when the climax is about to happen, and when songs like "Love Won't Tear Us Apart" play at the ultimate romantic moment. That seems like it's the fault of the director, not any over-the-top dialogue written in the script.
The time travel "rules" in science fiction are pretty well set to some sort of standards, and this movie generally doesn't break those rules. Fate can't be changed, and there's no problem with meeting yourself in the past or the future, but you have to buy in to the premise that this is genetic. That premise leads to fetuses that time-travel out of the womb when Henry and Clare try to have a baby, and allows many interactions between past and future selves.
Another over-the-top idea, however, is that the scientist, Dr. Kendrick, is supposedly making a name for himself by treating Henry for his condition, and that leads to training time travelers in controlling their disappearing act. Then there's the creepy idea that a little girl waits in a meadow behind her house for a naked man from the future to come up (she does leave him clothes), but the fantasies cause her a few fantastic diary entries.
OK, sometimes the movie gets really weird, but overall it's a very entertaining escapist sci-fi romance—and these days that's a rare event.
By Jackson at 12:04 PM ON 08/14/09
Ghost? Ghost??? I can think of a lot of things to describe Ghost, but Science Fiction would ALWAYS be furthest from my mind. I'm sure most agree. That's like calling it a comedy. I wonder if the same person who wrote this also helped with the ridiculous new name of Syfy?
By Drew at 3:15 PM ON 08/14/09
Okay, referencing "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" without mentioning how incredibly horrible that movie was, and then moving on to calling "The Fountain" boring does not win this reviewer any points with me. "The Fountain" was not for lazy Saturday afternoon viewing, but it's not boring. Meanwhile, "Benjamin Button" had to be one of the worst movies I've seen since "Superman Returns", and I've never been able to understand why so many mainstream critics love it.
By no news here at 5:56 PM ON 08/14/09
Bare butt gets a headline. Way to go Syfy.
By Al at 7:08 PM ON 08/14/09
Okay, now if you referenced other romance time-travel flix like Kate & Leopold or maybe even The Lake House, your article might have seemed competent, but good god man, can you even tell scifi from fantasy or just drama (Benjamin Button?)
If you hate the book or movie, just say so and stop wasting time shining a flashlight on someone's "butt".
What's the next article? "The Best SciFi Full Frontals Review"?
Unbelievable!
By Adsclark at 4:26 AM ON 08/15/09
Anything on the film staying faithful to the book?
There were some pretty dark underlying themes in the book which have seemed to be glossed over with these cracking lines of journalism:
'Then there's the creepy idea that a little girl waits in a meadow behind her house for a naked man from the future to come up (she does leave him clothes), but the fantasies cause her a few fantastic diary entries.
OK, sometimes the movie gets really weird, but overall it's a very entertaining escapist sci-fi romance—and these days that's a rare event.'
'Sometimes the movie gets a little weird'?
Has the 'reviewer' even read the book? Henry has a rendevous with himself, is future self and his wife at one point.
The idea that if you love someone in the future does that mean you love them in the past? - If I married a 30 year old would I still have the same feelings for that person if they were 6? What form would that love take? Are the feelings the same?
As I said it is sometimes dark ground the book carries you across, with nods to homosexual love and statuatory rape.
But thanks to your main concern being Bana's ass- I can say that the only thing this laughable 'review' has done is make me seek a proper review elsewhere.
Standards on here are getting worse with each passing week - Please take the word review away from the title - you are doing the word a terrible wrong.
By Ruby at 5:33 PM ON 08/15/09
What about "Kate and Leopold"?
I can't fathom that "Ghost" falls into the science fiction category, but K&L had heavy doses of time-travel, technobabble, and romance.
By Sanderson at 12:27 AM ON 08/16/09
There has never been a better mix of Scifi and Romance than Farscape. How you can even talk about scifi and romance and not mention Farscape is beyond me.
Generally, when the director of a movie has little to no respect for the genre or the source material he is working with, the end result isn't pretty. I'm not expecting much from this turd at all.
By bsarrasin at 6:00 PM ON 08/17/09
Wow. Does Mike Szymanski get paid for this writing gig? I ask because this is the most poorly reported and researched article I've read in a long time. Terrible enough even to tear me away from reading the article on my mobile to blast it on the internet. Let's take a look, shall we?
“It's a genetic defect that was initially triggered by stress, and the character fades in and out of time without any control, landing in the new time zone without a stitch of clothes on every time.
This may be just another excuse for getting Hulk and Star Trek movie star Eric Bana to show up naked in a lot of scenes (which he does, but mostly from the back side).”
While the film does deviate from the source material in a lot of (unfortunate) ways, this isn't one of them. Henry's 'Chrono-Displacement Disorder' is the lynchpin of the entire story, not an excuse to showcase Bana's backside. Clearly the author has no knowledge whatsoever of the novel, and while I understand this article is about the movie, he could have at the very least glanced at the wikipedia article on the novel before making baseless assumptions.
“The film feels a bit like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, so it's not surprising that Brad Pitt (nominated for an Oscar for that acting role) is listed as one of the producers.”
Witness the miracle of wikipedia, once again: “The film rights for Audrey Niffenegger's 2003 novel The Time Traveler's Wife were optioned by Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt's production company Plan B Entertainment, in association with New Line Cinema, before her work was even published.“
The schmaltzy stuff happens when distant thunder rumbles just when something bad is going to happen, and when fireworks light the skies when the climax is about to happen, and when songs like "Love Won't Tear Us Apart" play at the ultimate romantic moment.
The song is Love Will Tear us Apart, which I would think one could assume even if they aren't familiar with the song by Joy Division since it is repeated about 100 times during the track.
“Then there's the creepy idea that a little girl waits in a meadow behind her house for a naked man from the future to come up (she does leave him clothes), but the fantasies cause her a few fantastic diary entries.“
This is the main reason this adaption shouldn't have been made, perspective. The structure of the book allows the reader to see events from both Henry and Claire's perspective, providing invaluable insight to the innocent nature of Henry's interactions with the younger Claire. This is lost when transferred to the film medium.
Could an adaption of this book have worked as a film? Possibly, but the nature of the way the story is presented in the book would have to be translated exactly. I would liken this to what Zack Snyder did with his adaption of the Watchmen graphic novel. However, like Watchmen, what we'd be left with is a film that while true to the source, is kind of pointless.
So with that said, whenever you guys at SciFi Wire want to fire this chucklehead, I'll do his job better (and probably cheaper!).
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bsarrasin:
Wow. Does Mike Szymanski get paid for this writing gig? I ask because this is the most poorly reported and research...More »