Huh. So that was.

[apocalypticbob]

Just got back from seeing "The Time Traveler's Wife", and here are my candid thoughts:



I kinda thought it sucked.

No, really. I mean, I know I will probably lose my girl card for saying so, but while I thought the premise was interesting, and Rachel McAdams' ass was worth the $3.50 I paid, I was disturbed by plot holes that gaped bigger than a SanFran queen's ass, shmaltz deemed too cheesy for a Hallmark commercial, and the creepiest child actors ever given a SAG card.

Now, let's be frank here. I'm a big cry baby when it comes to chick flicks. Hell, I cry at Kodak commercials, cotton commercials, and songs from the 80's. I'm the Goddess of shmoopy shit. This movie felt so forced, with its predictable plotline, leading score, and endless effort to build touching moments in the meadow that it forgot to make us actually give a damn about the characters. I've seen horror movies where I was rooting for the villains more than I was rooting for this couple. I think much of that comes from awkward introductions, both to us and to each other. Instead of developing characters, they try to make you like them quickly with sympathy, so they can hurry up and get to the time traveling, and it just feels pushy.

The child actors in this are unremarkable, except for their unremarkableness. The little girl looks like a troll doll that was melted in a horrific microwave accident. I just couldn't feel anything for her. The boy isn't much better, though thankfully we are subjected to far less of him.

The plot has huge holes in it. We know that Henry can't time travel on demand, so he was never able to save his mother or, obviously, himself. We also know that his daughter can control her time travel, and travel outside her own life span, so why couldn't she go back and save her grandmother and her father? Inexcusable mistake that destroyed the rest of the movie for me, not that there was much left to destroy.

Here's the biggest problem this movie had for me: it was as anticlimactic as a withered penis after a long night of whiskey dick sex. We know Henry is going to die. It is smeared in our faces constantly that he is going to die. We know the year, we know the place, we know the how, so when he actually dies, instead of feeling sorry for his grieving widow and melted troll daughter, you are left thinking, "Finally!" Don't get too excited, though, because we still need to have one final goopy scene in the sun dappled meadow so he can tell them to stop waiting for him and they can walk off hand in hand like the end of a douche commercial, leaving only the audience with that "not so fresh feeling".



I suggest giving this one a miss.

Comments

[naamah-darling.livejournal.com]

Fuck it. I will give you $3.50 just because this review was so awesome.

I am sorry you had to suffer, though.

Review was better than the movie.

[seferin.livejournal.com]

IIR, the issue, never explained, was that events could not be prevented, as they were already remembered, noted when Henry admitted he did try to save Mom.

Re: Review was better than the movie.

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

If that's the case, then, yeah, it was completely missed in the movie. All he ever says is that he has tried to go back and save his mom a hundred times and can never get there in time, but if he can't control it and his daughter can, then that excuse doesn't hold water. Also, if you can't alter something you can remember, then how can Future Alba come tell FiveYearOldAlba about her dad dying? I just don't see how the dynamics of that work. It's all very confusing, and convoluted, and contradictory, and probably a few other con- words that I can't think of right now.

Re: Review was better than the movie.

[seferin.livejournal.com]

Also, if you can't alter something you can remember, then how can Future Alba come tell FiveYearOldAlba about her dad dying?

I don't see the disconnect here. Would you rephrase? I don't think Alba attempted to stop it.

Re: Don't forget

[seferin.livejournal.com]

this was written as romance novel, not as Sci fi, thus they play hard and fast with the rules.

Re: Don't forget

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I could rephrase better, but then I'm tired, so maybe it's just me. It all just seemed too loopy and convenient for me, but I think that expecting logic out of it may well be asking too much.

I suppose I've lived too long with the very common time travel rule of not interfering with your past self, because the very act of doing so will alter the future in ways you can't forsee, but in this story it is okay to interact in some ways but impossible to interact in others, and, again, that all seems a bit too convenient. If you are able to go back in time to tell someone that someone is going to die, by the same laws you should be able to go back in time to prevent death, or be able to tell your Past self how to prevent that death. It should be all or nothing, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Either you can interact with the past or future, or you can't.

This is just too blurry for me. If you are going to do a science fiction love story, DO a science fiction love story. Don't half ass it.

Agreed.

[seferin.livejournal.com]

And your review was still better than the movie.

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

You would have walked out. Sargon...well, I don't think you could have dragged him kicking and screaming to see it, but assuming you sedated him and wheeled him in ala Hannibal Lecter, would have gnawed his way through the mask and straps to escape.

It was truly awful in its mediocrity.

[naamah-darling.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it says a LOT that I am not a chick flick person, yet I still enjoy them about twenty times more than he does. Under the circumstances, I would not put it past him for the sheer loathing to kill everyone in the theater simply with the power of his brainwaves.

It is fun to watch him hate movies, though.

[spacezombie.livejournal.com]

Wow. This review rocked my socks. I was pretty sure the movie would come far from it, from seeing the awful preview disc at work. At least I know it was as sappy-crappy as I thought it would be. I bet with his bouncing around time he didn't think to pick up a few winning lottery numbers.

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

Actually, that he did do. Won five million, bought his wife a nice house with a big garage to use as her art studio.

The rest of the movie, however, was awful.

Here's another joyful little spoiler for you. She keeps having miscarriages because their baby keeps time traveling out of her womb. Cheerful, right? If that doesn't lick the fucked up icing right off the fucked up cake, I don't know what does.

[5rings.livejournal.com]

You've missed your calling. You should be doing this professionally for the Rolling Stones, or rather, for a magazine that is now what they once were.

Damn. The imagery. I could say more, but I'll leave it to those more appropriate to comment.

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

Maybe movie reviews for Playboy, Hustler, or maybe Maxim. I think that's about the only place my kind of language would fly.

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

I'll see your cotton commercials, and raise you some active culture yogurt commercial. I don't even know which one it was, but it got me. And then I was amused because I had just sniffled over a commercial which marketed a food that makes you poop more, marketed straight to women.

I'm wondering if we will ever see a yogurt that stops you up, and if so, will they market it to men?

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's pretty...wow. You win. You can hold my girl card for a while for that one.

*grins*

I think we could sell it. I used to know a lot of military guys who would go on field exercises and beg, borrow, and steal other people's peanut butter and cheese from the MRE's to stop themselves up so they wouldn't have to dig latrine pits. You know if we can market it to the military we'd make the big bucks.

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

I never did get that... it's miserable enough with all the sweat, grime, B.O. and aches... adding constipation pains seems like masochism. And not the fun kind that comes with cool scars.

[docjeff.livejournal.com]

One day I'd like to be so filthy rich that I could hire you to be my official movie describer. Just sayin' ... :) *Hugs*

[titaniumdiva.livejournal.com]

That has to be the best movie review I have read in YEARS!

I didn't go see the movie because my husband assured me it was going to suck. Now I have strong confirmation that he was right. :-D

[ayeamspartacus.livejournal.com]

Well, that clinches it. We'll probably rent it at some point, but we won't be seeing it in the theater. We were on the fence about this one. We love sappy chick flicks and scifi. The premise sounded interesting, but it sounds like the execution was awful.

[ceanncait.livejournal.com]

I heart you so hard. Come see us next weekend! Srsly.

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

The book is amazing - I've heard the movie is terrible and doesn't capture the book at all. The book is definitely not chick-lit or just a romance, either. :-)

[setfiretolife.livejournal.com]

I totally cried through the whole thing. I am such a girl. :P

What kills me is the end, I couldn't quite tell in the hunting scene - did he or did he not actually shoot his time-traveled self and in rather fucked up way, commit suicide? In a way, that would improve the movie if he did. ;)

Idk. I found it interesting but not something I could think about too terribly much. I mean, time-travel that comes on without warning, takes you wherever it wants, mostly for a period of <10 minutes (save that two weeks he was gone over Christmas), makes you repeat agony from your past over and over, which you have zero control over ... wtf is the point of that? Worst Supernatural Gift Ever.

And I hate the name Alba. :P

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

I didn't get that. I thought it was his wife's dad and one of his friends. The shooters looked too old to be him.

And I'm right there with you on both the fuckedupedness and the name hatred. Alba just makes me think of albacore tuna, and who names their kid after a fish?

[ladygules.livejournal.com]

The book is amazing, I picked it up as a quick read in the Las Vegas airport years ago and fell in love with it. I've read it 3 times since then.

The movie was lighter then the book. Some things were "niced up" for an American movie audience and made some of the story make much less sense. There was a lot of things that were more real and much more emotionally impacting in the novel. But I think that this is the kind of storyline that you like or hate. Much like Benjamin Button, which I also liked. Sorry to hear that you didn't like it. It leads me to believe that you won't give the book a try.

Just because I loved the book, I have to argue in favor of the movie as well. Both Henry and Alba can travel outside of their lifespans, but neither one can control thier time travel. Alba knows better when she is going to go, basically she has more warning then Henry, but she can't control where she is going to. Also, Henry has always tried to change his mother's death and is never able to. Basically what is in the past is in the past.

But, That being said. If you are ever feeling generous, givethe book a shot.