Movie of the Week: The Time Machine (2002)

"Hoping to alter the events of the past, a 19th century inventor instead travels 800,000 years into the future, where he finds humankind divided into two warring races." IMDB

The Time Machine (2002) is a modern remake of The Time Machine (1960) which was a film adaptation of an H.G. Wells novel published in 1894.  Oddly enough, the novel was titled The Time Machine.  You'll never guess what it's about...

This movie is one of those remakes that I really and truly like apart from the original because they are very different movies with different stories and story telling styles.  The 1960 film was very much like the novel, both in story and voice. The main character was H. George Wells (that name sounds familiar for some reason)  He has invented a time machine because he could and wants to go do things and see stuff...ya know, time travel-y stuff.  He doesn't really have a reason for building his machine other than to say, "See!?  Told ya I could!"  The entire story is told in the form of a flashback which he is describing to his friends who stand around, sip brandy, and probably remember how cool it was to own people. I won't spoil if for you, but it's pretty good. Now, in the remake, our main character is a man named Alexander Hartdegen.  He is kind of an absent minded professor type with a love for math, pocket watches, and a woman named Emma.  On the very same night he proposes to her, she is murdered for her engagement ring.  Alex doesn't take this well and spends the next four years inventing time travel in order to prevent Emma's death.  Unfortunately, because temporal causality is a bitch, nothing he does can prevent her death.  So, instead of dwelling on the past, he sets out to find answers in the future, so he can dwell on the past...in the future.  The rest of the movie ensues.

The two movies do share some common elements of the original story such as the end of modern civilization caused by stupid humans, evolved races of future people like the Eloi and the Morlocks...hell, there's even a time machine! (fucking duh)  There are even a couple of nods to the fans of the original movie such as the scene with the clothes changing on the mannequins outside his workshop, and the crystal nob on the time machine control handle. However that's pretty much where the similarities with the original story end.  This movie has a completely original story which I very much enjoy, even with the colossal plot holes at the end.  Watch the movie and see what I'm talking about why don't ya?!