The Time Machine

Director Simon Wells’ (great grandson of The Time Machine author H.G. Wells) Flux Capacitor must have been running low on plutonium, cause this movie ceases making any sense 40 minutes in. But the DVD is not a complete disaster, which is more than can be said of the one-star review we gave its theatrical release. What, you may ask, makes it better on DVD? For starters, the hour-and-a-half running time, which halts this nonsense before it’s able cause damage to the actual time-space continuum. Second and most important, the sound is incredible and many of the visual effects are shockingly good (though Stan Winston’s Morlocks look like a cross between long-haired Grinches covered in dirt and Grateful Dead fans). Guy Pearce handles himself well, as always, but even he looks like he ain’t buying any of this 800,000-years-into-the-future crap, especially when Jeremy Irons shows up as an albino “Über-Morlock,” with a brain so big it goes down his spine. What’s that about?