Timeline (2003)

rating: ****

the story: Modern archaeologists time travel to the 14th century.

what it's all about: This is the kind of movie that ages well.  I remember watching Timeline on home video soon after its release, and not thinking too much of it.  Like a lot of people I mostly thought of it as a Paul Walker movie, which in 2003 didn't mean as much as it does in 2018.  Not so much because Walker went on to have a brilliant career, but because the Fast & Furious franchise exploded, and that alone increased his significance over time.  2003 also saw his turn as the lead in the second Fast & Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, but that was hardly an indication of where Walker, much less the series, was going to go. 

Oh, and by the way, watching Timeline again, Walker isn't really the star of the movie anyway.  That's the biggest irony, right?

Instead, hindsight really helps make obvious that Timeline is a Gerard Butler movie.  What a fascinating career Butler has had.  He made his name in 2006's 300, and his subsequent career has been a tug-of-war with whether or not audiences actually can think of him for anything other than 300.  Which means in a lot of ways, his career hasn't actually changed all that much.  But what always fascinates me about movies is the constant discovery of it.  Movies are a curious medium.  You can follow them any number of ways, and certainly actors are one of them.  To the general public, it's always about the present, or if the past is revisited at all it's mostly to do with movies that are already well-known or random ones that have developed cult followings.  It's rarely about revisiting movies for the sake of revisiting them.  And yet, Butler is as ripe for that as anyone.  Was 300 truly a fluke, or did he have anything that might have helped indicate such a development?

You can guess my answer already.  Timeline would certainly been a strong indication.  The whole point of his character can be summed up by attempting to answer whether or not Butler's type of hypermasculinity can best be acclimated in the past.  Every character in the story struggles with fitting in.  It would've been cheap storytelling to have Butler just slip into it, and maybe because he was still a relatively unknown element, his arc develops the way it does, but precisely because it works out that way, it works extremely well both for the story and to illustrate both where Butler was at this point in his career and where he was headed. 

Bottom line, if I had been paying attention, I would've recognized back then that I had just seen a star be born.

There's a ton of great talent worth relishing around him, beyond Walker.  Billy Connolly, obviously, and also Michael Sheen, another actor years ahead of be "discovered" as a star.  David Thewlis, meanwhile, puts on an American accent, and I assume in 2003 I had no idea who he was, much less that he would become a favorite.  My big draw, back then, was actually Neal McDonough, who never quite found his sweet spot, following the early demise of Boomtown.  Matt Craven is always worth noting.  Anna Friel, meanwhile, plays French and quite convincingly, even though she's clearly British in real life, so when I saw her again (and in 2003 I had no idea I was supposed to care about her, either), I initially wasn't even sure she was someone I knew, just that she looked familiar. 

This is also the penultimate film directed by Richard Donner, which in 2018 sounds ridiculous, especially when his last movie was 2006's 16 Blocks.  Not that 16 Blocks was a bad way to go.  It was an excellent way to go.  It's just sad to see a talent retire, especially when he was still firing on all cylinders.

The story was based on a book by Michael Crichton, whose professional height was in the '90s, when he was riding on the success of the Jurassic Park film and ER, plus his continuing string of blockbuster thrillers.  I've read him off and on for years, and every time I remember all over again how much I appreciate what he brought to the culture.  In a lot of ways, Jurassic Park distorted his appeal to a fairly cartoonish degree.  And in a lot of ways, Timeline is Jurassic Park minus the cartoonish distortion, an attempt to revisit the past in a way that spectacularly backfires.  Crichton more often tried to resolve real world misconceptions than went for sensationalism, which Jurassic Park the movie was at least wildly accepted to be.  I mean, it single-handedly revived popular obsession with dinosaurs.  But it was also about hubris run amok, as Crichton often explored, totally misjudging when a gamble has been miscalculated.  That's Timeline, the role Thewlis plays.  It's a shame Crichton died just at the start of an age when hubris has exploded, when a little perspective is most desperately needed.

But to watch something like Timeline, and to see how effortlessly, finally, it straddles escapist storytelling and the classic cautionary tale, is to see Crichton's genius all over again, and how Donner brought together a rich host of actors to tell it.

2003 Capsule Reviews

Kill Bill Vol. 1
rating: *****
review: Other people have Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction as the reason they became fans of Quentin Tarantino, but this is my origin.

Phone Booth
rating: *****
review: Colin Farrell in a terrifying Twilight Zone experience, delivering one of his most mesmerizing performances. 

Finding Nemo
rating: *****
review: Pixar has a certain story archetype it rarely deviates from, and I think along with Toy Story this is a perfect example of it.

The Matrix Reloaded
rating: *****
review: A lot of fans were severely disappointed that the sequel to The Matrix suggested Neo didn't automatically end the struggle at the end of that first one.  I love the exquisite nuances thrown into the mix in this one.

S.W.A.T.
rating: ****
review: I love the ensemble in this one, including a pre-stardom Jeremy Renner.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
rating: ****
review: Jack Sparrow supersized Johnny Depp's career in a heartbeat, but I'm partial to the immediate sequel, Dead Man's Chest.

The Matrix Revolutions
rating: ****
review: I've always struggled with how much time is spent on the war waged by the rest of humanity, and whether this conflicts with Neo's role in the saga, which otherwise concludes beautifully here.

Daredevil
rating: ****
review: I'm baffled that this one ended up becoming a poster child for how not to do a superhero movie; Jennifer Garner is pretty much perfection, and everything works well around her, including Ben Affleck, who of course was in the midst of a very public backlash at the time.  But why can't it be appreciated now?

Shattered Glass
rating: ****
review: Everyone seems to forget that Hayden Christensen's appeal was explained perfectly in this non-Star Wars performance.

The Rundown
rating: ****
review: Still my favorite Dwayne Johnson vehicle.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
rating: ****
review: As far as I'm concerned, the only thing Peter Jackson got absolutely right in the conclusion to his trilogy was Sam telling Frodo that if he wasn't capable of carrying the ring himself, he could still carry Frodo onward.  But then, that one moment is kind of enough to justify the whole thing.

The Human Stain
rating: ****
review: This is one of those movies that ended up being wildly misinterpreted because someone wanted to make a stink about the casting, a phenomenon that's only been further escalated in recent years.  Anthony Hopkins is cast as a black man whose skin is so light he can pass for white.  How do you do that role with anyone but a white man?  Is there really a point to arguing that?  I also love that Wentworth Miller appears as the young Hopkins, apparently his one and only chance at cinematic glory to date.

American Splendor
rating: ****
review: This is the movie where critics finally discovered Paul Giamatti, and possibly Harvey Pekar.

Elf
rating: ****
review: The movie that launched Will Ferrell's popular film career, and also an early look at Zooey Deschanel.

Cold Mountain
rating: ****
review: One of those truly heartbreaking experiences.  I think if Jude Law had pushed for a more showy performance, this would've helped stem the backlash from all the roles he was in at the time making him seem overexposed.

Lost in Translation
rating: ****
review: I love Sofia Coppola, but I think the hype surrounding this particular movie did it and her a disservice: in the end it really became the start of Bill Murray's melancholy period, and a glorification of Scarlett Johansson's butt.

Seabiscuit
rating: ****
review: I may think Tobey Maguire was miscast as Spider-Man, but he suits a jockey in an inspirational movie just fine.  Sadly, being miscast as Spider-Man pretty much made more movies like this increasingly impossible.

Bruce Almighty
rating: ****
review: This was one of Jim Carrey's biggest hits, but it also made him a sideshow act in his own movie, insofar as he supported the gimmick rather than being the gimmick, which ultimately derailed his career.

Peter Pan
rating: ****
review: This overlooked Harry Potter era update ironically cast Jason Isaacs in a role(s) better than the one he had in those movies.

2 Fast 2 Furious
rating: ****
review: I originally caught this in a college auditorium full of enthusiastic viewers.  It was my first taste of the budding franchise, and I loved it.  I'm not surprised that given a few more chances it finally exploded in popularity.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
rating: ****
review: I don't care if fans consider it superfluous, this one's got the best ending of the whole franchise, the first time someone dared deviate from the basic plot of finding a way to avoid the apocalypse.

X2: X-Men United
rating: ***
review: This is another franchise where I greatly differ with popular opinion: I think the first two, which are highly regarded, are trumped by the less popular third.  X2 needlessly duplicates the invasion-of-the-mansion gimmick from the first one, and spoils the showdown between Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen fans had clamored for on a single sequence.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
rating: ***
review: The best thing about this is also the saddest thing about it: Sean Connery.  Because this was his last movie, and it's not as bad as people like to say, and it's thanks in large part to him.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico
rating: ***
review: The conclusion of Robert Rodriguez's Mariachi trilogy can't really competed with its predecessor, Desperado, but that's okay.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
rating: ***
review: There's nothing particularly wrong here, except like the book series from which it's derived, it's missing the crucial context by focusing on characters elevated mostly because we're watching them.

Intolerable Cruelty
rating: ***
review: The Coens lampoon legal shenanigans with George Clooney forecasting a few years later into a career critics would eventually respect.  You could watch this and Up in the Air as a double-billing, and it would probably make more sense.

Big Fish
rating: ***
review: If there's a problem with Billy Crudup, it's that he seems like the most normal guy to ever become a movie star.  So to see him at the heart of a Tim Burton film is to discover new levels of irony.

Ned Kelly
rating: ***
review: This is another of those movies Heath Ledger made that technically had been done before, but critics forget that audiences are not nearly as aware of that fact as they are.  With all due apologies to Mick Jagger, this is the version of the Aussie hero's life that is going to be remembered.

The Gospel of John
rating: ***
review: Worth watching to see Henry Ian Cusick play Jesus.

Head of State
rating: ***
review: I think we can all agree that Chris Rock would be an excellent president, all things considered.

Open Range
rating: ***
review: As part of his never-ending apology tour for being Kevin Costner, at one time one of the biggest movie stars in the world, Kevin Costner makes another Western and agrees to share the spotlight.

The Recruit
rating: ***
review: Colin Farrell makes a movie with Al Pacino just at the point where no one cared about Al Pacino anymore.

The Last Samurai
rating: ***
review: Tom Cruise does disillusioned here probably better than in Born on the Fourth of July, but he overshadows Ken Watanabe, which in the grand scheme of things is wrong for the movie.

The Missing
rating: ***
review: I kind of think if more people revisited this (including me) it would be more appreciated.  It's basically a John Wayne movie with Tommy Lee Jones as the Duke, but Cate Blanchett as the lead character.  Even Katharine Hepburn didn't get to do that (and Blanchett would certainly know all about her).

Timeline
rating: ***
review: A relatively minor Michael Crichton adventure (but everything seems like that after Jurassic Park), but also another of those early chances to see Gerard Butler in action pre-300.

Beyond Borders
rating: ***
review: I know Angelina Jolie is the lead in this, but I had the stronger impression of Clive Owen, which is similar to the problem with Last Samurai.

Hulk
rating: **
review: Eric Bana is one of my favorite actors, so I'm sorry his popular career all but crashed around this, but also kind of relieved, as it allowed him to move on to the best work of his career, rather than a Hulk movie that ultimately has too many tonal issues, starting with Bana himself, as I now see in hindsight.  Bruce Banner should be mild in comparison to the Hulk, but if you're going to have someone like Bana in the role, you ought to at least have something interesting for him to do.

Underworld
rating: **
review: I remember the first time I saw this thinking what a terrible actor Bill Nighy was.  Now of course he's a favorite actor, and this movie was genius in figuring that out.

Mystic River
rating: **
review: This movie made Dennis Lehane one of the most popular authors in Hollywood thanks to Sean Penn.  But I think Penn was hugely overwrought and overhyped in the role.

Out of Time
rating: **
review: Shame that it led to a string of action roles for an actor (Denzel Washington) who really should have been lighting up showcase roles.

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
rating: **
review: The second of Angelina Jolie's overly slick Tomb Raider movies that are in hindsight more interesting for supporting actors destined for breakout performances elsewhere; the first time it was Daniel Craig, this time Gerard Butler.

The Order
rating: **
review: A sort of dark Knight's Tale.  Thank god someone finally let Heath Ledger really stretch himself in a different Dark Knight.

Gigli
rating: **
review: Notoriously considered one of the worst wide release movies ever made, I have a soft spot for it thanks to a mesmerizing performance from Jennifer Lopez.

Basic
rating: **
review: The best scene of the whole movie was hyped as the whole reason for the movie: where John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson finally reunite like it was Pulp Fiction all over again.  I mean, how do you make a whole movie and convince yourself that the story dictates leaving this most crucial element to the last possible moment?

Tears of the Sun
rating: **
review: In hindsight, probably a career mistake for Bruce Willis to choose this moment to go back to action movies.

2003

Viewed/Ranked

1. Kill Bill Vol. 1
2. Phone Booth
3. Finding Nemo
4. The Matrix Reloaded
5. S.W.A.T.
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
7. The Matrix Revolutions
8. Daredevil
9. Shattered Glass
10. The Rundown
11. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
12. The Human Stain
13. American Splendor
14. Elf
15. Cold Mountain
16. Lost in Translation
17. Seabiscuit
18. Bruce Almighty
19. Peter Pan
20. 2 Fast 2 Furious
21. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
22. X2: X-Men United
23. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
24. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
25. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
26. Big Fish
27. Ned Kelly
28. The Gospel of John
29. Head of State
30. Open Range
31. The Recruit
32. The Last Samurai
33. The Missing
34. Timeline
35. Beyond Borders
36. Hulk
37. Underworld
38. Mystic River
39. Out of Time
40. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
41. The Order
42. Gigli
43. Basic
44. Gods and Generals
45. Tears of the Sun
46. Identity

Other Notable Releases

1. 21 Grams
2. Agent Cody Banks
3. American Wedding
4. Anger Management
5. Anything Else
6. Bad Boys II
7. Bad Santa
8. Brother Bear
9. Bulletproof Monk
10. Cabin Fever
11. The Core
12. Daddy Day Care
13. Dreamcatcher
14. Freaky Friday
15. Freddy vs. Jason
16. Girl with a Pearl Earring
17. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
18. The Hunted
19. Intolerable Cruelty
20. Johnny English
21. Love Actually
22. Masked and Anonymous
23. Matchstick Men
24. Monster
25. Old School
26. Party Monster
27. School of Rock
28. Shanghai Knights
29. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
30. Something's Gotta Give
31. The Station Agent
32. Sylvia