MovieChat Forums > The Time Machine (2002) Discussion > underrated movie - 5.6 are you kidding?!

underrated movie - 5.6 are you kidding?!


I am always fascinated with the concept of time traveling and I thought Guy Pearce did an awesome job portraying this. Also it was funny how Alexander came up with the greatest invention of all time working with crap technology. He came to the future and that hologram just laughed at him.

I loved the film.

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"Practical applications".

I agree... great fun movie :)

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I also agree... 5.6 is ridiculous IMHO.

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More like overrated, if you ask me.

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Well, the film is an alright excursion, but certainly had it's weak elements that were not too well thought out. Also, it deviated quite a bit from the source material, which I guess can count against it as well. I mean, if you make a solid film while having deviated from the source, that is one thing. But to deviate and present an idea that is weaker or less satisfying is simply not the way to do it. Why fix what isn't broken? The film succumbed to the need to be an action film, and that is why it sort of falls apart. It's good for what it is, but it really could have been much more. Maybe 5.6 is a tad low for the effort, but it doesn't truly deserve anything higher than a 6.

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Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

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It deserves is IMDB rate.Its a mediocre movie,nothing compared to butterfly effect and inception or even time travelers wife.

the zombies are crazy.the movie does not have a path,whether it will be romatic or what.samantha mumba and guy pearce only spent some time then fell inlove.

the movie is crowded with ideas.a very promising plot,however promising that it is,a good watch for some boring times.

final destination is more fun if youll ask me.

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this movie did a disservice to time travel movies.

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The worst thing about this movie is that it nearly eviscerated the source work. That's astounding given the fact that Simon Wells is a descendant of H G Wells. The 1960 movie, while far from perfect, was much closer to the elder Wells' story despite missing some key scenes. This isn't the worst movie ever made, but it damn surely deserves to be no higher on the imdb ratings than is the case.

Carthago delenda est.

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The worst thing about this movie is that it nearly eviscerated the source work. That's astounding given the fact that Simon Wells is a descendant of H G Wells. The 1960 movie, while far from perfect, was much closer to the elder Wells' story despite missing some key scenes. This isn't the worst movie ever made, but it damn surely deserves to be no higher on the imdb ratings than is the case.


The problem with saying this, of course, is that we hold a sort of reverence for a source work simply because it's over a century old, yet still holds true. Either the source author's own descendants have the right to interpret his words and adapt them as they see fit, which results in a movie like this; or they do not, and any attempt to deviate from the author's actual words for intent are heresy. This is a dangerous game, even if you don't yet realize it; without the right to add artistic license, the genre grows stagnant and eventually dies a horrible death. Think of the old Boris Karloff films that could've seen new life if people didn't cling to his acting like it was the bloody Second Coming. Every modern pop-monster spatterfest has had to deal with that specter, even decades after his death.

Fiction is fiction. If you can't cope with that, step outside and enjoy some realism. We won't wait up for you.

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[deleted]

I realize it's been four years, but what the hell were you babbling about? Obviously anyone with the rights to adapt a literary work can do so as he or she sees fit. I wasn't arguing otherwise. That does not mean, however, I personally must like it or fail to criticize it in context of the source material.

You must have missed the part where I didn't levy the same criticism at the original movie as at this one. The reason was that despite the changes from Wells' novel, I felt the 1960 Time Machine was actually a good movie while I didn't--and don't--care for this one, which, I feel reels erratically between pseudophilosophical pedanticism--that is, it's preachy and pretends to be deeper than it is--and dumbed-down action sequences intended to draw in the hipster crowd.

That I don't like what Simon Wells did in adapting H. G. Wells' novel is not dangerous and in no way leads to artistic stagnation and the horrible death of an entire genre. It just means I didn't like the film was made and highlighted the thing I felt was weakest about it.

You really must be very sensitive to opposing opinions to blow my personal view of one simple film out of proportion like this.




Requiescat in pace, Krystle Papile. I'll always miss you.

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The George Pal version stayed pretty true to the story, I agree, but it completely missed the philosophical point of the book. The Simon Wells version may have completely disregarded the story of the book, but it was absolutely spot on when it came to the spirit and intellectual nature of what the book was ultimately about: "What is man's place?"

The older version made our Time Traveler into an implied Christian (utterly deviant from the novel) and gave him no intelligent reasoning behind his understanding of why he was even making the time machine at all.

The novel was all about "What is the purpose of man's place?", and our Traveler was attempting to make discoveries about where humanity would venture. He was also trying to uncover a lot of mysteries about the aspect of time's effects on humans, or what they'd become. While the 1960 version sort of slides that in, it was more geared towards a ultra-simplified variant of, "What happens in the future?" like he was simply curious. The 2002 version also deviates from Wells's reflective ideas, but it gave a point to the Traveler's reasoning about why he'd build a time machine (a very excellent and cinematically-pleasing reason, by the way). But after he, in the 2002 version, goes into the past, he then tries to find out "Why can't one change the past?" or rather, "Why must certain events happen to man?" This question is much more similar to and indicative of Wells's philosophic leanings about mankind, and it offers a more engaging story to find out the answer, as opposed to wandering around in the future for no reason.

I love the 1960 version, by the way. I also love the 2002 version. They're both drastically different from the book, but in different ways. But it's ok! Because they both have great stories. I'm simply defending the 2002 version because I agree: it's pretty underrated, and it's terribly over-analyzed by people who loved the older movie so much that they worship it.

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"Rescue the damsel in distress; kill the bad guy; save the world."
--Rick O'Connell

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Nothing compared to one of the worst films ever made (The Butterfly Effect)??? God, you must have the worst taste ever. The Butterfly Effect is a dumb, badly acted and thought out thriller made for dumb people to feel smart, full of plot holes, contrivances and awful exposition.

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Donnie Darko is awful. I don't get why a lot of people like that film? It should've been rewritten and it could've been really great. Like the bullies and the pedophile actually get their fucking comeuppances. Also, the protagonist is killed in one of the timelines, when a plane crashes into his house? What kind of fucking ending is that shit!? Yeah TBE had an alternate ending where Evan commits suicide in his mother's womb, but that's only an alternate ending, DD just has only one and it's fucking garbage!

The Butterfly Effect is far from a terrible movie. It was dark and interesting and had a really good story. It's a shame people prefer DD over TBE. I'm sorry but DD is dumb, there's nothing really magical about it. Groundhog Day did the whole timeloop thing, a whole lot better, 8 years earlier. Also fuck those asshole jocks! They weren't funny, they were just bastards and something really bad should've happened to them! I'm glad we now live in a world where that shit is fading away! Good fucking riddance to cruel people like bullies! They're garbage and they don't amount to shit, in life! God, please banish them all to Hell!

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[deleted]

The Time Machine (1960)

WAY BETTER

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In a very subjective manner, I like both films equally, but if I rated them in an unbiased manner I'd say the remake is even better. There's nothing in the original to make me feel that is something more than a fun B movie.

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I think it's much better than what it's rated as well. I've never got why people hated this movie so much. No one is claiming that it's better than the original; I thought it was a decent movie. I'd give it a 7 at least.

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Underrated for sure, not that this movie is a masterpiece or anything but it's a well constructed film that I found to be quite entertaining, with good performances all around. I know it doesn't follow the original tale point-for-point but it does a good job in branching off in it's own direction while still conveying the heart of the original story; I thought this version was well done and I'm surprised it got such a low reception from the general audience. It's one of the better recent remakes floating around.

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I don't understand some people.The original is better so the remake deserves 5/10? That's hilarious.
Without having seen the original i truly believe this movie is underrated.

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I agree. This movie stands on its own and deserves a higher score. I am quite certain many people are rating it lower due to making comparisons to the novel or earlier film.

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I agree, this is an underrated movie. It is flawed, but I really enjoy it.



Well, I've got news for you pal, you ain't leadin' but two things: Jack and sh*t and Jack left town

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A little bit underrated, but not by a wide margin. The actors did a pretty good job with the parts they were given (especially Jeremy Irons, in his little screen time, who, as always, was flawless), but I strongly disagree on the well constructed part. The script was a mess. English surviving unaltered, even as a dead tongue (like Latin is today) 800 millennia (the sheer audacity of these people), plus the library computer, plus the stone carvings, the scene were Alexander's hand got stuck outside the temporal field while traveling into the future without harming him etc...

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I liked it also. It was certainly not as good as the original. However, few remakes ever top the original due to the fact that they are retelling an already familiar tale. I gave it a 7. Certainly nothing spectacular, but a solid and enjoyable film.

I hate to say this, but I have already read several negative comments about the movie simply due to the fact the the "future" population depicted in the film wasn't full of snowy-white people. Small minded individuals over-analyzing insignificant elements such as that, along with the fact that it was a remake, have certainly dragged the film's overall rating down. Moviegoers are often misguided in their loyalty to older flicks. Moreover, some viewers often take a film at face value and judge it harshly due to a certain critic's take, or not liking a particular lead actor, or certain value contradicted by the film. Rather than judging it as a whole, or by simply watching it themselves. It's unfortunate, but people often run with the herd, or project their own misguided sensibilities onto everything.

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Yeah that or it could be that the original is a masterpiece and this movie like all 21st Century movies is a pile of shit

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Just watched the 2002 version for the first time in over 10 years, and i gotta say that the replay value is off the charts! I found so many new things to appreciate about it. The acting is nuanced, characters believable and fun, and the dialog is pure prose. The sets and costumes are extremely detailed; I especially liked the time machine and the laboratory. After watching it i wanted to see what IMDB rated it at, and was absolutely APPALLED to see 5.6!!!
So, I went over, and rated it a 10/10 just to bump the rating. This movie does a masterful job of bringing the story to modern film, in a great re-watchable way. And, it is definitely a million years away from being a pile of shit, hahaha. peAce --Zane

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