How sad is this?

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

As a Christian fundamentalist film it conveys the message that straying from God and the Bible leads to moral decay. As a Time Travel film it shows the difference between two eras. It almost seems like a religious version of Back To The Future 2, only this film is nowhere near as good.The dystopian reality of the modern era is probably even worse in reality than as portrayed in this film. To make it a family film for a Christian audience the swearing, violence and sexual deviance cannot be shown. So, it lessens the impact of what the Pastor encounters (life is worse than that).I'm not religious, though I largely agree with the film's view of the state of the modern world. I would have liked the Time Traveller to attempt to change the future, in a sort of reverse Back To Future. So, instead of having a professor telling Marty McFly to actively prevent tampering with the timeline of history, we could have had the pastor returning to 1890, telling of his findings and being sent back into the future by his fellow clergymen to see where the "rot set in" and watching his attempt to change it. An opportunity missed.

Even though the concept of time travel was proposed most prominently by that most noted of secularists H.G. Wells the Christian film industry gets in on the act with Time Changer. If you think about it just the concept of time travel is totally alien to their world view. If in fact the broad march of our history is fixed than people monkeying around with time travel are in a great position to gum up the works for our fixed future which ends with Jesus's return.It's 1890 and a group of the faculty at a bible college are discussing a new book by David Morin about his theological world view which emphasizes good works rather than salvation. Colleague Gavin McLeod disagrees and he's been working on a time machine and has been to the future. He sends a reluctant Morin there to see what the lack of a firm fundamentalist faith in society has wrought.This man from the Gay Nineties is shocked at the world one hundred years hence. The rest of us just don't take these people seriously any more. Sin in their view is rampant. My God if he had gone up to today he'd be seeing 19 states legalizing gay marriage.Society back in 1890 was sure paradise. Women could not even vote, black people were segregated and in economic bondage. Laborers couldn't get a decent wage as unions were ruthlessly suppressed We were about to go to on a short imperial binge and come up with Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Phillipines. Certainly nothing like what the European powers were doing, still it was aggressive. Censorship was the order of the day and gays were just beginning to emerge from the unalterably religiously damned to folks who were psychologically unfit and with intensive therapy was needed to cure them. But you could have paradise if you just got with the fundamentalist program and thought just like they did and the world was then your oyster.I will say this though. If Christians perfected time travel and did it back in the Gay Nineties what would stop them from traveling up to the Rapture and just heading right into heaven assuming you make the cut. That's what McLeod does as soon as Morin gets back and he fixes a date of 2080 for the second coming and he moves his destination date to 2070 to get in on the Rapture. As I said before what if they all did, that would sure screw up the future.And remember no man knows the date and hour of the second coming, but apparently Gavin McLeod finds out.This film is so wrong on a scientific and philosophical level.

Don't let the description fool you- this film is slow moving, boring, and with little climax. With the back drop of an above average "home-movie-feel" and poor acting, this film took me back to remembering "The Wylds" movie. This film would be better set up for church youth to watch, as it would be a more appropriate film there- or a "family movie night" on a Sunday- if you get my drift. But don't expect tears or leaving with a warmth in your heart from everyone, because this movie is TRUE Christian fundamentalists! IMHO (Each to their own, but not my cup of tea.... My interest fizzled out about 30 minutes in... Sadly, I had to see it in theaters when it first came out, thinking it held similarities to "The Time Machine"- woo, epic fail there!)

This 2002 movie is virulently attacked throughout these reviews. I sense very little of the attack is really due to the low budget, somewhat amateurish nature of the production, or a critique of its artistic merits. Instead the outrage relates to the Christian theme, that the teaching of morality should be based on the authority and truth of Jesus Christ, rather than personal feel-good, individualized insights.Both Christians and non-Christians attack the film. The former attack it because they put Christianity to the human reason test and conclude it's wrong to evangelize, IE, their Christianity is relative. The latter attack it in a mocking way as rabid propaganda, and project their own biases claiming the movie endorses bigoted intolerance and oppression, which of course it doesn't.Indeed the movie can be critiqued where it fails in cinematic artistry, but the reviewers shouldn't let their fears and biases undercut all objectivity. Most of the reviewers should have caveatted their reviews that they are anti-Christian, and then they could honestly flail away at Christianity. But Christian reviewers indeed have missed the opportunity to think through this movie: do Christians lose the point of Christianity, and potentially wander even further from Christ than their ancestors did, when they are reluctant to invoke the truth of Christ crucified and teach morality, love and compassion, without reference to God? That's the question the movie brings to Christians and others who have their moral foundations rooted in God.