Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Blistering performances.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I do not usually rate movies. In fact,this is the first movie I have ever rated. Some actors are better than others. However, this movie is a slapstick production that makes a mockery of the book. I watched half of the movie before shutting it off. This is a classic example of a wonderful story being synthesized into complete and utter lunacy.

Usually the adaptation of a novel isn't worth the book itself, but sometimes it is. It's not the case of Timeline. I bought the book several months ago and then, when Sky Italy broadcast the film, I saved it on my MySky and I begun to read the novel. It's not the first Crichton's novel I read (before I had read Jurassic Park, The Lost World, A Case Of Need, Rising Sun and State Of Fear) and once I finished Timeline (taking a pretty long time because despite I love reading, I am not a regular reader) I decided it wasn't my favorite one.Today I finally decided to watch the film. The cast looks cool: there are some not-so-famous actors, beyond stars Paul Walker and Gerald Butler, I knew. If you haven't read the novel you can enjoy it as a nice and decent action movie set in the Middle Ages. But if you've read it, well, you'll find some important changes and cuts.The first thing I noticed once the film was finished is that Marek's character isn't well defined, since he decides to stay in the past, but the script doesn't tell us that he has a great passion for this historic period. So a person who hasn't read the book can't understand his choice; you can say that he's in love with Lady Claire, but it's a poor motivation.Then, there are some sequences which aren't in the film: the mill and the tournament scenes are totally cut off from the screenplay.Another basic question is the way the characters keep in touch with radio transceivers. It's important because through this narrative means, in the novel, the characters find out that there is another person from the present day.Lesser important things: the existence of characters created by the film's writers who isn't in the novel (like the French guy who is sent with our heroes to help them with the language, even though in the novel there is a character who knows Occitan) or some changes in certain characters (e.g. Kramer is a woman in the book).Even Doninger's end is slightly different: in the film he's killed by a knight, while in the novel he is sent in 1348, during the Black Death.

I couldn't believe there was a book to this film. This annoying movie was the first one I saw at the cinema in 2004. I only went, cause some friends were going to see it, and I tagged along. Honestly there were times through this overlong film, watching it, a painful and straining process, I just wanted to leave. I expected this to be a science fiction, in space kind of film, not one of medi evil, so you can imagine my disappointment. It's very start had me excited, then... I expected more from director, Donner, who kind of had me thinking, has he lost the plot. The actors aren't at fault. They give it what they got, lead Walker, a bumbling mess of a performance, that's unconvincing. He's the oversexed son, would you believe of archaeologist, Connely. Bumbling jock, Walker's character, Chris, an avid inventor, only has eyes for Oz's Francis's O'Connor, who's too occupied in her work to care. Walker's scenes kind of do come as a compensation as in what is a slow, dull, 111 minute film, where honestly you want to turn off. When Connelly, is somehow transported 600 years back to medieval times, it's up to Walker (who's acting here, does boost up) and his colleagues to travel back in time and rescue the father. Timeline came as such a disappointment, shamefully wasting so more good actors. Medieval pics like these, to me are only good if they have a lot of gore, and much more is at stake. Timeline's problem painfully lies in the plotting and it's mostly flat journey of too much screen time wasted, and especially the latter of my last sentence. We don't care here, but more so, this formula and story is so old hat, it's quite easy, to lose focus here. Again Mr Donner needs a good talking to. This is not how you approach something like this now. I don't think I ever looked this forward to an ending in my life, and I don't mean the plot either folks.

It has been quite a while since I saw this but I have seen this movie twice, once about half a year ago and the other time as a kid. The plot is that a group of archaeologists are digging up a castle but when one of the archaeologist's father goes missing, they also happen to find some of his distinctive belongings inside the site, even carbon dated back 600 years, when England was feudal with France. They find out that his father was part of an experiment to actually go back 600 years thanks to a time machine. They must go back, rescue him and leave. The acting is standard, the plot is pretty dull when they go back in time, they find the father almost instantly - but no. It just pads out the story more for the next hour. To it's credit, I do like the idea but a problem is that it takes advantage of almost none of the mystery that it could inspire. It's not a bad movie but at the end of the day, it's not very good.