Reviews

Nic Cage ends up in the middle of nowhere with a broken down car. He tries to pay for it by cleaning up a place that used to be run by serial killers who had their souls take over animatronic animals during a satanic ritual. He cleans, then destroys an animatronic. Then he cleans, plays some pinball, drinks an (energy?) drink, cleans some more, kills an animatronic, cleans some more, drinks another can, kills an animatronic, plays some pinball, etc. Oh, and there's some kids that try to "resque" him that all end up getting killed except some hispanic girl.

Most of the "story" just exists of Nic Cage repeating the same things over and over, though, until all the animatronics are "dead". Things never get really creepy. Things never get really scary. Things never get really funny. While I guess this movie is something like a wink to oldschool slashers like Chucky, it just doesn't have any of the characteristics that make those oldschool slashers entertaining. But maybe that's just me getting too old for this ****!

The History of Time Travel is a 2014 sci-fi docu-fiction movie written and directed by Ricky Kennedy, a film student from Texas. The story is told in the form of a fake "documentary" (aka mockumentary).

We learn of a scientist named Richard Page and his family. Starting in the 1940s, Page dedicates his life to creating a time machine but never manages to finish it. When his son picks up his fathers work, he finally manages to complete a time machine during the 1980s.

The "documentary" then goes on to tell us how this time machine has been used multiple times throughout history to change the timeline. And while it's a pretty interesting idea to expore these events through interviews with various experts, the "documentary" itself, every time we learn of a new change in the timeline the "documentary" continues as it it were from that new timeline... contracting what was said just minutes ago, as that was from a different timeline.

The end result is a "documentary" that's a patchwork of interviews taken in different timelines, which makes no sense whatsoever by the rules of time travel as they're explained in the "documentary".

This would have been a far superior movie IMO if the History of Time Travel was told from the perspective of the final timeline, basing its knowledge of the different previous timelines on the notes of the inventor after it somehow ended up in the final timeline. It could tell the events from each timeline without the "documentary" itself having to jump between timelines. And it could even leave open the question of whether all these events did in fact take place of they were just the imaginations of a madman, as no one alive in the last timeline would have been aware of the previous timelines by the time de "documentary" was made.

But at least the story is original, you say? Well... not really. One might argue that the story of "The History of Time Travel" is a bit of a mixture of that of movies "Primer" and "The Butterfly Effect (both from 2004) as well as videogame "Red Alert" (1996). And each of these sources this movie is likely to have been inspired by tells a more convincing time travel story.

Add to this questionable special effects and acting, and I simply cannot score this movie higher than 3/10.

* SPOILER ALERT*

I kinda like how the movie started out, but it went all awry very very fast.

Laurence Fishburne as Perry Mason? Really? No Jimmy Olson? Really? Lois Lane finds out from the start that Clark Kent is superman? Really? Kent saves an entire bus filled with school children but his identity remains unknown? Really? In spite of that, Kent lets his father die because his father doesn't want him to reveal his identity? Really? And finally, are we really supposed to root for some guy who knowingly destroys half a city along with the future of his own species in the middle of a testosterone fueled fight? Really?

Also, both my girlfriend and I had more sympathy for Zod and his crew (who were more or less the only rational people in the story) than for Clark Kent or any of the other "good guys", which is quite telling considering how one-dimensional the villains were overall.

* SPOILER ALERT*

I never read the graphic novel, but I've seen the film several times now and I can hardly get enough of it. For those of you unaware of the plot, it is a compelling film noir mystery thriller about a group of people who become superheroes, are then used by the US government to fight its enemies and are later discarded by the US government. One of the group was murdered and the others start investigating we he had to die.

Interesting about the back story is that both the socio-political climate and characters are well-developed and realistic. The use of superheroes by the US allowed the Sovjetunion and US to become more polarized than in our reality, making the US government far more conservative and bringing the world very close to nuclear holocaust. The superheroes all have their own unique character traits, each based on real and flawed human beings like I've met in my own life. What's most interesting about the plot of Watchmen is the way these different personalities interact with one another and how they set themselves apart from the rest of humanity.

What sets this film apart from other films, however, is an audiovisual style few people besides Zack Snyder could actually pull off. The visuals are simply breathtaking throughout the entire film and the audio adds to the atmosphere the way only a few other films can. Watching the film, I feel immersed in a surreal dream and the first time I sat glued to my chair for the entire duration because of the sheer beauty of the visuals, the interesting plot and the fascinating characters.

Maybe the graphic novel was even more compelling as the film plot-wise, I don't think anyone could have done a better job making a film based on the graphic novel. Please remember that graphic novel and film are two different media and you'll never be able to tell the entire story of a multiple edition graphic novel into a single film, however you'll also never be able to control the pacing, acting and soundtrack of a graphic novel. It is my opinion that those who didn't like this film either ignore the differences between the two different media and are frustrated by the film straying from the graphic novel more often than they would like or simply didn't get the story and lost interest due to their confusion. After seeing this film several time, I can't really find anything not to like about this film, which is why I give it a maximum score (something I rarely do).