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Order this DVD from Amazon.com
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Timeline
(Paramount Home Entertainment)
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| DVD Release Date:
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April 13, 2004
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| Length:
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115 mins.
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| Rated:
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14A
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| Format:
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Widescreen (2.35:1)
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| Audio:
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English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, English Dolby Surround, French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
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| Subtitles:
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English, Closed Captioned
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| Extras:
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Journey Through Timeline 3-Part Documentary ("Setting Time", "The Nights of La Roque", "Making Their Own History"), The Textures of Timeline Featurette, Theatrical Trailers, Previews
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Believe it or not, there's an upside to a movie tanking with audiences. That upside is the DVD release. When a movie bombs, a lot of people will avoid seeing it at the theater. Those same people are the ones who'll check it out on DVD - and when they do check it out on DVD, their expectations are that much lower thanks to any bad word-of-mouth the movie may have garnered during it's theatrical run. Case in point - Timeline.
Timeline seemed to have a bit going for it. Before it's release, it looked like a decent flick. Based on a best-selling novel by Michael Crichton. Directed by Richard Donner (of Lethal Weapon fame). If it had anything going against it, it was the presence of Paul Walker. How this guy still gets movie roles is beyond me. Still, I was one of the fortunate ones who listened to the word-of-mouth and waited for the DVD. In turn, my expectations weren't too high, and I wasn't as disappointed as I rightly could have been. Sure, not a great flick by any stretch of the imagination, but passable as entertainment.
Anyways - it wasn't just Paul Walker that lead to the film's demise. Richard Donner didn't really bring much to the table, and although the premise was good, the writing wasn't that great. The story centers on a group of young archaeology students (Walker, Frances O'Connor and Gerard Butler) who are approached by some mad scientists to go back in time to rescue Paul Walker's father (Billy Connolly) who they recently sent back to the middle ages and who they are now unable to retrieve. Again - a decent premise - the filmmakers just didn't pull it off.
For those that could be bothered, there's a couple of features included on the DVD too. First, there's a documentary titled "Journey Through Timeline" composed of 3-parts: "Setting Time", "The Nights of La Roque" and "Making Their Own History". Fancy titles. Altogether running just over 45 minutes, this is more than your standard promotional making-of featurette. We go a bit more in depth looking at all the facets of filmmaking. We hear from a myriad of key behind-the-scenes people including the director, actors, producers etc. about the challenges of making the movie (including several key scenes) and we also get a decent look at some on-set footage. I'm not quite sure the movie deserved 45-minutes - but if you're a fan, this one is worth the time.
The only other feature we get is another featurette titled "The Textures of Timeline". Running just under 20 minutes, we get more info about the film, this time focusing on the costumes, the props, the effects, the sets and so on. This could have easily been incorporated with the previous feature, but that may have been too much. I guess they were wise to separate the two.
In addition, the disc includes trailers for this and some other Paramount titles.
Overall, nothing too special. (Personally, I still blame Paul Walker.) I will give the special features credit though. They were probably more engaging than the actual film. But that really isn't saying much. If I had the choice to go back in time myself and avoid this movie, would I? Not necessarily. But I'm willing to wager that some of the people involved with the film wish they had that opportunity.
| The Movie: |
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4.5/10 |
| The Extras: |
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5/10 |
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Liam Cullin - Editor
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