an you really go back in time and change the past, and even your destiny? That is the paradox that Alexander Hartdegen (Pearce) confronts in this update to H.G. Wells' classic tale, The Time Machine—directed by Wells' own great-grandson, Simon Wells.
When we first meet Alexander, he's the quintessential absent-minded professor, so caught up in his work that he often can't remember the important things—like proposing to his girlfriend, Emma. But that fateful night in Central Park, what starts out as a mugging ends in Emma's death—sending Alexander into a tailspin of grief and isolation. During this period, the idea hatches in his mind to go back in time to prevent Emma's death.
On his first sojourn into the past, Alexander succeeds in preventing the mugging, only to lose Emma in a freak accident. Haggard and desperate for an answer to his philosophical question, Alexander returns to his lab and travels forward in time, hopeful that the passage of time has yielded the answers he seeks. Alas, even in 2030 New York, the answers are not forthcoming. Blinded by his quest, Alexander presses on another six years, only to land in the midst of an unfurling catastrophe. He barely escapes alive, and falls back unconscious in the time machine, unaware of the years speeding by. When he comes to, the year is 802,701, and primitive humans called the Eloi reside in the safety of the cliffs.
Some story points diverge from the original novel, with the dual result of both new energy for an old mainstay of sci-fi, and beefed up action/effects sequences that feel unconnected with the framework of the initial story. The special effects range from B-grade to stunning, and actually hold up better on DVD and the small screen than they did on the exaggerated big-movie screen; on DVD, a mediocre, mildly entertaining film transforms into something more. Wells maintains a fast-clipped pace—sometimes to the detriment of character development—and keeps the film entertaining almost through the end.
Special features worth making time for
Sure, you can argue that The Time Machine's pedigree begged for extended treatment on DVD. Still, considering this film was neither a big-budget flick nor a big box-office hit, the depth of the special features is a pleasant surprise.
Once you intuit that the open circles on each menu screen represent bullet-point choices to scroll through, the interface is stunning in its easy-to-navigate simplicity. Even the transitions between menus is fitting, given the movie's theme—although some might find the fast-moving screen a bit dizzying. Another gripe: The scene index only features two scenes per screen ... which adds up to a lot of clicks to find the scene you want.
Next is the sound: There are several choices for soundtracks, including English and French 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound and English and Spanish 2.0 Dolby Surround Sound. (Subtitles are available for English, Spanish and for the commentaries, but not the French tracks.)
And now, to the good stuff: There are three special features sections, including the "Archives," "Behind the Scenes" and "Commentaries." The Archives are literally just that, filled with three trailers, production notes and filmmaker and cast bios. Oddly, the excellent conceptual-designs resource—packed with storyboards from the different eras depicted in the film— would be a better fit with the content in Behind the Scenes.
In the aptly titled Behind the Scenes, the pieces are short, but sweet. Most interesting is the nearly seven-minute scene that was deleted from the early part of the film; intended as an establishing scene, this sequence adds an extra dimension to Alexander. There are two slickly produced six-minute featurettes (likely originally intended as promotional material) with interviews with the producers and director on the creation of the Morlocks, and on building the time machine. There's a short, four-minute vignette tracking the visual effects; oddly, though, there's no ID of whom it is we actually hear. There's a stunt-choreography snippet, but it lasts only one minute, too short a time to really get into.
The real treat on this disc is the inclusion of two different audio commentaries, an unusual find; listening to the interplay between filmmakers coming at the film from different directions is a nice value-add. In the same early scene in Alexander's lab, for example, director Simon Wells and editor Wayne Wahrman are discussing the lighting on the scene, the challenges of shooting in a particular set and the illogic of Alexander polishing off his mathematical formulas minutes before he departs. Meanwhile, on the commentary track with producer David Valdes, visual-effects supervisor Jamie Price and production designer Oliver Scholl, the conversations are more technical (for instance, we learn how they came upon the real mathematical formulas that populate Alexander's multilevel blackboards in his lab).
The final extras are two versions of an animatic sequence with the Eloi. In one, you get the audio commentary of an unidentified someone (Wells, perhaps?) explaining the storyboards in detail; in the other, you get to watch the animatic progress in time with the dialogue from that scene in the movie. It would be nice if they could have linked to that particular spot in the film as well, but it gains points for presentation, anyway.
