Dir. Richard Donner
Once upon a time there was an archeological dig in France, led by Professor Johnston (Billy Connolly.) The team keeps getting advice from their sponsor company when it comes to where to dig next, and the company is always right. This happens so frequently that Professor Johnston becomes suspicious and goes to the company to determined to find out how they know so much. He leaves behind his son Chris (Paul Walker) who has no interest in archeology but is interested in Kate (Francis OConnor,) one of the archeologists. While Chris tries to woo Kate there is a major find in a newly discovered room. Even though no one has been in the room for 600 years they find a lens from the professors glasses. This leads to the main characters investigating, and finding out the company has discovered time-travel. The good professor is trapped in the past, and the digging team (with son) goes into the past to rescue him. I would hope someone would do the same for me in similar circumstances. The historian of the group is Andre Marek (Gerard Butler,) the one to keep people on track, so they wont disrupt things historically. At least, thats the attitude he has starting out. They have to blend in, find the professor and get out in a limited amount of time. Its a stressful kind of situation, and it doesnt help that things are not all working correctly in the present.
The first thing to mention is that there is blatant thievery involved. Gerard Butler steals the show as the most interesting, bravest, cleverest character involved. The special effects are fantastic, especially the scene with the fire arrows. The costumes are understated, which would be accurate for people trying to blend in. In this story the old time French are the good guys, and the English are true scum. Thats a switch, since American movies rarely show the French as sympathetic when they are fighting the English. The moderns go back to a dark time, where some are forced to kill for personal survival. It really bothers them when they do it. I like that, it shows humanity in a situation where most movies just move on to the next scene. One of the characters is interested in preserving history, until history turns into people he knows. Then the people are more important to him. I think that would be my reaction as well. Now some of the bad stuff. Case in point is Chris, the professors son. Paul Walker tends to give the impression of being, well, kind of dumb in a very beautiful blonde kind of way. For all I know he might be a rocket scientist in real life, but he looks like hes never had a coherent thought in that pretty little head of his. At least his decisions in the movie are usually sensible, which sets him apart from most of the rest of the characters. You have two marines who run down the middle of the road to their deaths when they are told to hide. Marines dont know how to hide? Yeah, right. They act like stupid people, which puts them firmly in the crowd here. The character of Kate is not a waste of space female, but acts like one by doing incredibly dumb things, like talking in a conversational tone of voice when there are people who want to kill her not three feet away. These people are supposed to be academics? Arent academics supposed to be smart? Geez. I suppose you could make the argument that archeologists generally dont get themselves into deadly situations, [Indiana Jones doesnt count.] therefore would not know how to behave. I dont buy that answer, however. Stupidity tends to irritate me, and I see no reason to make an exception for this plot. The company with the time-travel capabilities does it with a wormhole. If I hear about another wormhole ever again, Im going to scream. Im sick of wormholes. Bleech. Finally, I dont know if the movie not mapping out the time-travel rules, which is usually a requirement in movies of this sort, is a negative point or not. It doesnt tell us whether it follows the "you can change the future" theory, or the "anything you do in the past was already done by you" theory, or some other theory. Its generally expected that the audience will be told the rules for this story. So thats bad. My conflict comes with the fact that the scientists involved with the time travel device dont pretend to know the answer. If they dont know, why should we? I usually like it when I dont have everything spelled out for me, but in this case its probably just a symptom of laziness on the writers part.
Im going to rate this according to my particular fondness for time-travel movies. Please factor that into your decision on whether see this.
I rate it: Matinee
Paul Walker as Chris Johnston
Francis OConnor as Kate Ericson
Gerard Butler as Andre Marek
Billy Connolly as Professor Johnston
And Lambert Wilson (last seen as the Merovingian in the Matrix series) as the good-guy Frenchman. Fun, fun.