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Time I Will Never Get Back |
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April 2, 2010 by Jason P. Hunt My wife insists I've sat and watched this movie before. Honestly, I can't remember ever sitting down and watching. But I do have a vague recollection of sitting in the same room while she watched it. And now having actually watched it for the first time, I'm wishing I'd still never watched it. The Time Traveler's Wife is based on a book by Audrey Niffenegger, and it should have stayed a book. I don't know how many times I heard people say the book was better, which only reinforced my disinterest. After all, I'm not much of a romantic guy to start with. (oh, wait. I told myself not to get too snarky with this review...) Anyway, it's the story of librarian Henry De Tamble (Eric Bana) and Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams), and how they meet and fall in love and have a life together even though he's bouncing around all over the space-time continuum. And that's it. To say that the pacing is arthritic is being charitable. I've seen dogs with one leg move faster than this movie. There's no plot. There's no story. It's completely made up of random episodes that may or may not have to do with other random episodes that contrive to connect the dots. The problem is, the picture is incomplete and completely without any value to the viewer - in this case, me. My time is valuable, as is yours, and I would really like to do some time traveling of my own and jump back to before I popped this DVD into the player - and stop myself. To be fair, I have to give props to cinematographer Florian Ballhaus, who makes the picture look really pretty. I like the color palette and the lighting style, for the most part. But even that's marred by a few shots that feel like Ballhaus and director Robert Schwentke are saying, "Hey look what we can do with the camera!" Some shots feel like there in place simply to be there, and don't have any story motivation at all. Of course, to have story motivation, there must first be a story. Kudos also to the visual FX crew. The process of Bana's disappearance is really elegant and artfully done. The melting effect is so appropriate to the pace of this picture. But it works. And from a technical standpoint, it's a very impressive effect - not too over-the-top, not too razzle-dazzle. But there are so many problems with this script, I don't know where to start. The structure is stilted, for which I can blame editor Thom Noble (which is bad, because he's done a good job cutting other movies, like The Mask of Zorro, Flightplan, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Thelma & Louise). Ultimately, the problem with pace is in the lap of director Schwentke. There are some scenes where I'm guessing his direction went something like this: "And... stare at each other!" Or maybe, "Moon over each other... more mooning... now stare!" There were so many missed opportunities. Why does he travel? What kind of events has he tried to change? He mentions not being able to do so. When? What about the research done by geneticist Dr. Kendrick (Stephen Tobolowsky - whose talent is completely wasted in this movie)? What about the relationship with Clare's father? The ending is only a throwaway, and it could have been one of the biggest OMG moments of the film. (See how I threw in a little hip generation lingo there?) The DVD only has one single special feature, called "The Time Traveler's Wife - Love Beyond Words", but I didn't bother to watch it because I was so sick of these people by then... That's the biggest gripe I have about these characters: I didn't care about any of them. The script by Bruce Joel Rubin is so scatter-shot, I didn't have any connection with any character. That's a major fail. And early on, I'm bothered by the fact that Henry shows no moral qualms whatsoever about having to break in and steal clothes. No guilt, no remorse, no feeling that he should make amends or anything. That makes me like him even less. I have no moral qualms about telling you that I think this was a piece of crap, and you shouldn't ever bother to rent it or buy it. Unless you plan to inflict it.
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