The Time Machine (2002) Resident Scholar Profiles TOP SCHOLAR: sayruh SCHOLARS:
Would you like to be a scholar and make five dollars per review?
Click here to submit a review!
Review Summaries
"Professor from 19th century Columbia Univsersity (opening scene with the typical absent minded professor scribbling complex mathematical equations on the chalkboard) pops the big question to his girlfriend only to get mugged seconds later. His new fiance dies from a fatal gunshot wound and we jump to four years later where we again see the prof scribbling on the chalkboard. Whereas before the death of his fiance, he scribbled merely from being a pure nerd, now he scribbles with a purpose. He's invented a horseless carriage time machine that he hopes will enable him to change the past and save his fiance from her untimely death. Suprisingly enough his efforts prove futile, though why he only made one attempt- if there were actually several attempts made, it was not implied is beyond me- the guy from Groundhog's Day had to try a million times before he finally got the chick. At any rate his failure eats at him and he decides to explore the future to discover why he couldn't change the past. He meets a holograohic librarian who can't give him any information on time travel other than works of science fiction, so he takes another leap into the future and nearly gets smushed by a falling chunk of the moon and takes a bonk on the head. He wakes up a couple million years later after another ice age where he meets some nice people who are basically morlock fodder. The morlocks, a mutant branch-off of the humans, live underground except when it's supper time, and Prof is introduced to them when they emerge to hunt for dinner and his new girlfriend gets snatched. Because no one else is too keen on the idea of forming a rescue party, he takes off after them himself and comes face to face with a pasty white super genius morlock. There's a fight to the death between Prof and the pasty morlock adn Prof saves the day by blowing up his time machine to destroy the morlocks. There's not too much explanation about why or how this should have worked, but I'm sure most of the laws of physics were broken in the process. Another huge mathemetical improbability lies in the death of the morlock as he'd dragged through time until he dies of old ages and rots away. If the machine travels strickly through time, and not space, the morlock wouldn't have been hard pressed to extract himself, given what, a million or so years to do so. In the end Prof decides he can somehow be happy living in the future while his friends and his housekeeper back in the past seem to get along fine without him. I'm sure the world could have gotten along fine without this movie. All of the character save for the holographic librarian were as flat and boring as sheets typing paper and their emotions, if expressed at all, were generic. "
sayruh, Resident Scholar
"Prof. Alexander Hartdegen, a young scientist and professor at Columbia in the late 19th century, is shattered when his beautiful fiancee is shot by a mugger in Central Park (some things never change). He builds a time machine in order to travel back and reclaim her, but while the machine works, the scheme does not. To try to understand the nature of time, he travels forward, into the 21st century, and gleans both knowledge and intimations of great natural and human tragedies. A violent accident drives him and his machine 800,000 years into the future, where he finds a peaceful, dark-skinned human species called the Eloi, a few of whom have retained the English language, and a violent, monstrous second descendant of Homo sapiens called the Morlocks, who live underground and periodically surface to kill and enslave the Eloi. Trapped in the distant future, Hartdegen tries to make a better world of the one that he finds there. With some decent special effects but repetitive (and poorly lit) action sequences, this film version of H.G. Wells' early classic (directed by his great-grandson Simon Wells) is weak and only fitfully worthwhile. The scenes in the New York Public Library, with Orlando Jones (the young black actor in 7-Up ads) playing a holographic memory bank, are one excellent if small bright spot."
David Loftus, Resident Scholar
Click above for the new Obama Girl Parody video!
Overall Review
Our unique search engine breaks down books and movies into
dozens of literary elements, all of which are searchable.
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Composition of Movie Actual chase scenes or violence - 30% Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzle - 30% Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 40%
**Fantasy or Science Fiction?**
- science fiction story
Explore/1st contact
Yes
Time Travel:
- a lot of past and future travel
Explore plotlet:
- rescue mission
Time Travel Story?
Yes
To what time period?
- Distant future
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- scientist
Age:
- 20's-30's
Eccentric:
Yes
- eccentric
- obsessed
Hair color?
- brunette (Brown)
Body type
- very skinny (man)
- average (man)
Unclothed?
- Chest
Events of movie makes character more...
- aggressive
- happy
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
- English/British
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor?
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Secondary Main Character
Identity:
- Female
Hair color
- brunette (Black)
Hair style
- (woman) medium/shoulderlgn, straight
Body type
- ample chest & buttocks (female)
Unclothed?
- very tight clothes
How much in movie?
- 40%
- 60%
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Black
- American Indian
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
- magical being
Age:
- long-lived adults
Profession/status:
- dictator
- mastermind
Has special powers?
Yes
Magical/mental powers of main antagonist:
- telekinesis
- mind reading
- super strength
- can read emotions
Eccentric:
Yes
- obsessed
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- 20%
Hair color
- white/grey
Hair style
- (man) short/standard straight
Body type
- average (man)
unclothed?
- chest
Ethnicity
- White
Sense of humor?
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Very much smarter than other characters
Physical condition
- very athletic
How sensitive is this character?
- mean, arrogant
Setting
Earth setting:
- 19th century
- near future (later in 21st century)
- medium future 22-24th century
- distant future
Takes place on Earth?
Yes
Big cities?
Yes
Kind of city
- Beautiful sparkling advanced city
Style
Accounts of torture and death?
- moderately detailed references to deaths
- explicit references to deaths
Tone of movie
- depressed/sad
- fearful
Any profanity?
- None
- Occasional swearing
Kinds of F/X
- exploding vehicles
Is this movie based on a
- book
TOP SCHOLAR: