I only needed to watch three more time travel movies to round out the final month of Time Out, but then I remembered that I’m insane. So here we go. Temporal speed run. Here’s every time travel movie I crammed in before 2014, in 31 words or less. Plus a dumb picture caption, I guess. Whatever. Let’s flux this capacitor.
MR. NOBODY (2009) – Jared Leto wanders through a pretentious maze of pseudo-intellectual space-time poetry for 141 fucking minutes. High production value and occasionally interesting imagery fail to offset the lack of characters or story.
Not even stem cell compatible pigs can save this one.
ALI BABA GOES TO TOWN (1937) – Oops, turns out it’s just a dream on an Arabian movie set. (You lie, Maltin!) The gags and songs aren’t as good as Roman Scandals, but Eddie Cantor’s fun as always.
And he still can’t be pried away from the blackface.
TIMEQUEST (2000) – Saving JFK and the resulting timeline should be the entire premise, but the second half bafflingly focuses on identifying the time traveler. Bruce Campbell is kinda fun as Fake Oliver Stone.
And this actress is kinda naked as Marilyn Monroe.
THE JETSONS MEET THE FLINTSTONES (1987) – More like The Jetsons Take Forever to Meet the Flintstones and Switch Places with Them. Not as memorable as I, uh, remember. Still no resolution to the series’ Great Gazoo cliffhanger.
You can’t beat the Jetstones for an obscure group Halloween costume.
SLIPSTREAM (2005) – Sean Astin builds a time-reversing cellphone powered by exposition and ridiculous rules that ends up in the hands of bank robbers. Cool scene of a backwards plane crash, not much else.
Oh, and there’s that lady from that thing.
THRILL SEEKERS (1999) – Chrono-tourists visit historical disasters à la The Grand Tour, but the one thing they didn’t plan on was Casper Van Dien. Bad acting, laughable CGI, but an amazing subway crash stunt.
Who knew TBS Superstation had the budget for such things?
12:01 (1993) – Like Groundhog Day, but with a dumb particle accelerator/assassination subplot. Regardless of “Which one’s the rip-off?” legal complications, Groundhog Day is a million miles above this made-for-TV goofiness.
It wins some points for blowing up the bad guy with a goddamn laser.
JOHN DIES AT THE END (2012) – I should’ve liked this. I didn’t. Hmm. I think I’ve finally overloaded on “weird cool things (like time travel) happen because it would be awesome!” stories. The special effects were creative?
Some parts are kinda funny?
DONGGAM (2000) – So much better than that other time-traveling ham radio movie from 2000. A refreshing spin on romantic fantasy with surprising twists and a truly positive message on the search for love.
This truly deserved its own article. I apologize.
THE TRIANGLE (2005) – Why the hell did I decide to include a miniseries? (Eric Stoltz, perhaps?) It’s 255 minutes of disjointed temporal nonsense that Cinemanaut John summed up thusly: “Time is being STUPID.”
At least there’s a tender love scene between Sam Neill and Porno ‘Stache Sam Neill.
TOKI O KAKERU SHÔJO (2010) – There are a ridiculous number of adaptations of this book, so I picked the one currently streaming on Netflix. More boring than the batshit time travel sequence would have you believe.
Nope, not a magic potion. This is what science-based time travel totally looks like.
MY FUTURE BOYFRIEND (2011) – Selected by our friend Kelli Nova, this film’s premise of an archaeologist traveling back 1,000 years to research the concept of love could’ve been darkly hilarious, but oops, it’s ABC Family.
“Please describe it again without saying ‘clitoris’ or ‘butt plug.'”
LATER THIS WEEK:
The only time travel movie left to review…
Want more time travel? Head on over to the Time Out archive.
