Stars: Guy Pearce, Mark Addy, Phyllida Law, Samantha Mumba, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Guillory, Orlando Jones, Omero Mumba

Director: Gore Verbinski

Summary: Based on the H.G. Wells classic novel, a man creates a time machine which will take him into the future.

This adaptation of the classic sci-fi adventure tale by H.G. Wells, directed by Simon Wells (the great-grandson of the author), stars Guy Pearce as Alex Hartdegen, an absent-minded New York professor preoccupied with what passes for technology at the turn of the 20th century. However, the one thing that can distract him from his calculations is his love for Emma (Sienna Guillory), his bride-to-be. When tragedy strikes and he loses Emma, Alex uses the time-travelling machine that he's built in secret to change the present by going into the past. When that fails to alter fate, he leaps forward in time, eventually landing 800,000 years in the future, an era where humanity has splintered into two races--the docile Eloi and the ferocious Morlocks. There Alex befriends two of the Eloi (Samantha and Omero Mumba) and attempts to help them resist almost certain death at the hands of the Morlocks.
Like Pearce's character, this version of the novel is fascinated with technology and uses a daunting array of special effects. The fast-paced film was apparently not made without incident--Wells reportedly had a nervous breakdown during the shoot and was temporarily replaced by director Gore Verbinski (THE MEXICAN) for some scenes. Regardless of production difficulties, THE TIME MACHINE is an engaging spectacle that's anchored by Pearce and enhanced by the commanding appearance of Jeremy Irons.

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In 1960 producer-director George Pal's The Time Machinereshaped HG Wells' thoughtful, ironic novel into a two-fisted action movie, but one that still appeals to children and adults immensely and deserves its classic status. Wells' themes of biological and social evolution are played down, but there is a surprisingly melancholy thread as Rod Taylor's Time Traveller keeps stopping off at future wars to find that human stupidity still persists. In the first week of 1900 a group of fussy Victorians gather in Taylor's chintzy, overstuffed parlour to hear him tell of his expedition to the future, where the world is divided between the surface-dwelling, childish, beautiful Eloi and the hideous, underground, cannibal Morlocks. Wells intended both factions to seem degenerate, the logical final evolution of the class system, but Pal has Taylor pull a Captain Kirk and side with the Eloi and teach them to fight against their oppressors. The time travel sequence remains a tour de force, with a shop window mannequin demonstrating a parade of fashions as the years fly by in seconds and charming but still-effective stop-motion effects. The future is a wonderfully coloured landscape with properly gruesome cave-dwelling monsters and a winning Eloi heroine in Yvette Mimieux. It may not be totally Wells, but it's a treat.

On the DVD:The Time Machinearrives on disc in a lovely widescreen print which makes the film seem new all over again. The featurette "Time Machine: The Journey Back" combines some mild behind-the-scenes stuff about the film (and its star prop) with a moving mini-sequel reuniting stars Rod Taylor and Alan Young in a scene that actually addresses a plot point skipped over in the original. --Kim Newman

Aspect Ratio:	2.35 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Commentary, Additional Scenes, Featurettes, Production Design Gallery, Trailers, Hunt Sequence Animatic
Subtitles:	Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish
Year:	2002
Release Date:	October 7, 2002
Runtime:	92 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	D 022191
Keywords:	Time, Machine, General, Wide, Screen, Fiction, Science, Horror, Sci, Fi
Genre:	Science Fiction