Timeline (Film Review)

2003 Paramount Pictures
Directed by: Richard Donner; Written: Jeff Maguire and George Nolfi
Starring: Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, and Billy Connolly
Rating: PG-13; Running Time: 116 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 3/10

Professor Edward Johnston's got it pretty good. He's leading a medieval archaeology team in France, along with a team of adoring students. He's also joined by his son, Chris, who might not share Johnston's passion for archaeology, but cares deeply enough for his father to tag along anyway. Before you can say "living the dream," though, Johnston and his team find a 14th Century tomb containing a man and a woman holding hands. Apparently, in the 14th Century, holding hands wasn't a thing, so Johnston storms off to America to ask his project sponsor, the ITC Corporation, why they're pranking him. A few days later, Johnston's star pupil, Kate, finds a pair of 21st Century eyeglasses and a HELP ME! note from Dr. Johnston in the tomb...and both carbon date to be over 600 years old. Now it's Kate who's heading to ITC, along with Chris, and Scottish archaeologist, André, to find out what's going on. Turns out, in addition to boring old archaeology, ITC dabbles in time traveling. They've sent Dr. Johnston back to 14th Century France--and it's up to Kate, Chris, and André to go back in time to save him. Will our young, strangely attractive trio survive the dangerous, war-torn past to save and return to the present with the professor, or will they find themselves...
...history? 

Michael Crichton's 1999 novel, Timeline, is a joy, a late period gift to the beloved author's fans, featuring easy to understand descriptions of quantum theory, fun characters, and swashbuckling action. The 2003 movie adaptation doesn't really contain any of those things. The film's script dumbs the book's time travel science down to "We found a wormhole or something, don't worry about it." The film's leads, with Paul Walker as Chris, Frances O'Connor as Kate, and Gerard Butler as André, are young, charming, and good-looking, but the film's convoluted storytelling does them no favors, and allows them little opportunity for fun.
It's hard to tell who's to blame here. Apparently, the studio forced legendary director, Richard Donner (Superman, The Goonies, Lethal Weapon), to edit this film over and over again, until all that was left is this slog of a mess. Timeline feels chopped to hell, disjointed, and seems to barely mumble its aims. I read the book, and I still had no idea what the hell was going on here most of the time. Perhaps most unfortunately, Donner went through the trouble of doing most of the film's stunts and scenes of medieval warfare as CGI-free as possible, but as they're edited together, there's little for your eyeballs to hold onto--a stray fiery trebuchet shot here or there is about it.
It's a damn shame. The bones are here for some extremely fun, escapist fare, on par with Crichton's weird, blast of a book, and instead, all we get is personality-free, studio-mandated boredom. Unfortunately, that's not something you have to travel back 600 or even 18 years into the past to experience. Those who refuse to learn from history...