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TIME SHOCK STUDIO: Alexander Corporation PRODUCER: Random FX Productions GENRE: Sci-Fi RELEASE DATE: March 11, 2005 DIRECTOR: Alex Proyas CAST: Vin Diesel, Eric Bana, Eliza Dushku, Ice Cube, Michael Ironside, Alan Tudyk, Amanda Tapping

MC48'S REVIEW | SUICIDEJOCKEY'S REVIEW | PEDRO'S REVIEW | J GRAHAM'S REVIEW

MC48's Review of TIME SHOCK

WARNING: SPOILERS

For the most part, Time Shock looks, acts, and feels like a B-Movie, no doubt due to the fact that it was based off one. Combining elements of time-travel, an apocalyptic earth, robots, and dangerous things in the desert, not only did it mention the aforementioned B-movie, APEX, but also more recent films such as Twelve Monkeys and Pitch Black.

What set it apart from most other B-movies, however, was the top-notch special effects and acting talent. Quite frankly, the action sequences were stunning. From the get-go, the film is in high gear, kicking off with a spectacularly conceived time machine malfunction, a man vs. robot rumble in the desert, and a sudden jump into the midst of a full-scale war in apocalyptic earth. All within the first 30 minutes. The pace is lightning fast, and it's clear this film's set out to take the viewer on a thrill ride.

That said, there are of course some sacrifices. Firstly, because everything happens so fast, the plot is slightly convulted. I found myself having to consistently having to check back to fully understand the "science" and I still couldn't figure out what certain objects, procedures, and decisions were for. Plus, there must've been a gajillion plot holes in the script. I guess these are unavoidable in time traveling films, but this movie contained some of the most obvious I've ever encountered. The most glaring one is how Sinclair travels back and forth through time (or "paradoxes" as the script indicates) first into a new entity (i.e. when he travels into the past, he's still him), then into an exisiting entity (when he travels to the future, he takes over a parallel version of him, as indicated because he somehow got a "reader"), and then back to his original entity at the end of the film (indicated by the sudden non-presence of his "reader", but contradicted by the fact that he still had the disease). Also, somehow, in the two worlds, there are two Dr. Evans, two Victon Elgins, and two Natasha Sinclair/Weavers, but only one Nicholas Sinclair? You getting all this?

Also, there were some of the most retarded character choices in the history of HTG films. Sinclair is on the verge of fixing the time paradox thing... But he stops to have sex with Natasha. Not only that, but he chooses to have sex with the INFECTED Natasha. And then, now knowing that he's infected by the APOCALYPTIC disease, he chooses to go back to the "good times" to introduce the virus to THAT world (in another side note/plot hole/quirk, it turns out, it turns out that Sinclair was the first person to have the virus from 1973, even though he stayed in that world for no more than ten minutes, and there's mysteriously a re-incarnation in THE SAME WORLD, 100 years later, of the exact same Nicholas Sinclair without the virus. I should stop over-thinking this, shouldn't I?).

Maybe I'm nitpicking but, to me, these plot holes and character quirks were way to obvious to ignore.

Anyway, to wrap this up before I think up another plot hole, if you're looking for a film where you can turn off your brain and sit back for the thrills, this is it. Though it's a B-movie, it's a pretty darn good one and I give it a:

70/100

SUICIDEJOCKEY Reviews TIME SHOCK

Time Shock is a mediocre, yet somewhat passable sci-fi, time-travel movie. It has everything you would expect from a Hollywood sci-fi action flick; action, human-killing robots, post-apocalyptic mercenaries fighting said robots, a gratuitous sex scene and plot holes you could drive a truck through.

Though well presented, directed and paced, I was disappointed in that it wasn't the movie I expected, or at least hoped it would be. Not knowing anything about the film, I checked the Extra section and found the pitch for the movie. The pitch gave me the impression of a Stargate type film meets a post-apocalyptic Terminator world type film, where a scientist is the hero, not some muscle-bound action type character who will shoot and kill his way to a happy ending. Seeing how this formula worked with Stargate, and being a fan of the movie, I entered the film with high hopes.

One thing I quickly noticed was that if I hadn't read the pitch, I wouldn't have known half of what was going on and why. Most of the plot, background story and motivation was explained in the pitch and barely touched on in the film.

Another annoying tendency of the film is how it used unreasonable situations to forcefully keep the story moving ahead. Such as when Sinclair travels back in time to save the family.  A scientist back in the lab keeps the portal open allowing Sinclair to return, yet when Sinclair re-enters the portal instead of sending him back to the lab, it sends him to the future, why? Well because the rest of the story takes place in the future, so that's why it sends him there. There are a few other such incidents when this occurs, but I'm not going to harp on each of them.

When Sinclair appears in the future, we are now presented with the Quantum Leap theory of time-travel, in that Sinclair of the past enters the body of the Sinclair of the future, but retains the personality and knowledge of the Sinclair of the past. This begs the question why? Even how is this feasible or why it's even used, since the Sinclair of the future has his own issues and purpose, but they are never touched upon or explained, but ignored so that we can continue the story with the Sinclair of the past operating in the future.

We then meet most of the other cast members, including our action hero character, Shepard, played by Vin Diesel. This casting bears mention in that considering Shepard's dialogue, and the limited acting skill required to play the part, Shepard seemed better suited to being played by a wrestler-wanna-be-actor, than someone like Diesel who has proven his acting ability.

I would like to mention that despite these and many other problems with the film, I not only kept watching, but wanted to keep watching because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. Granting suspension of disbelief to bypass the plot holes, the piss-poor scientific mumbo-jumbo explanations used to justify what was going on, the useless scenes that served no purpose and the forced romance between Sinclair and his wife's alternate self, that led to a well presented, but absolutely ridiculously unjustifiable  sex scene The time-travel theme of the film had an original twist and hook, that made me want to know how Sinclair was going to fix it.

The ending, though cute, in a corny Twilight Show episode kind of way, was anti-climatic and kept the sour taste in my mouth the movie produced long after I left the theatre.

49/100

PEDRO Reviews TIME SHOCK

This film was Random’s attempt to make a film at HTG. I’m not really too keen on this genre though, but here’s how the film fared with my grading.

PLOT: The plot is very scientific and finds Nicholas Sinclair (Eric Bana)going back in time with a cold. He somehow can’t get back and realizes that he is in a post apocalyptic world. All the buildings are abandoned and the people have some sort of disease that the survivors are trying to fight off. Here he meets some military men including Shepherd (Vin Diesel). Nicholas also discovers his wife there, Natasha (Eliza Dushku) but of course this is in a different time so she really isn’t his wife. The military team tries to find out what’s going on with the disease and we get a sex scene between Natasha and Nicholas towards the end, but in an HTG universe isn’t an Eliza nude scene expected? Nicholas also realizes that he started the disease when he went back in time with the cold. He however does eventually go back to his old time and he decides to quit his job as he wants to start a family life with Natasha. However he realizes that not everything is perfect when he comes home and sees that his hands still have the disease on them. After all, you can’t fuck with time without reprocutions. The plot seemed like your basic time movie with diseases and whatnot but the writing helped it out and it made the plot worthy of a fairly high score.

FINAL PLOT GRADE: 70/100

DIALOGUE: The dialogue was pretty basic as far as military style dialogue and the post apocalyptic dialogue between Nicholas and Natasha is almost completely laughable. The dialogue has been uttered before in other films and doesn’t seem to be all that original. That’s why I’m not too keen on military style films. The dialogue over the disease was overdone in some points, especially when we hear Taylor (Ice Cube) yell that he got Natasha’s blood all over him and that he’s gonna die! The dialogue however was in no way all that horrid to give it a completely failing grade. Failing being under 30.

FINAL DIALOGUE GRADE: 40/100

CHARACTERS: I really liked the characters in this film and they made it seem more interesting. Nicholas as a scientist was really great and he adds a lot to the film. Natasha is also an interesting character with a disturbed background as she is infected by the disease and Eliza Dushku was the perfect person to play her. I wasn’t too keen on the role of Shepherd as it is the same old Vin Diesel cliche character role that you see in all these types of films. Most of the characters were engaging though and made the film at least worth a view one time.

FINAL CHARACTERS GRADE: 70/100

CASTING: Michael Ironside is God and even though he is in like every film in this genre, he rules! Eric Bana is always great to see cast and he made a great Nicholas Sinclair. Eliza Dushku is even really great as Natasha. I’m just not to keen on Ice Cube and I really do not like Vin Diesel in this same role over and over again. Stop using him!

FINAL CASTING GRADE: 70/100

PACING: I really liked the pacing for this film. It never went to fast or too slow, it was just right. We got the great scientific scenes and the film smoothed just fine as the action came into play. We’re never bored with this film, which I can’t say about a lot of films. The scenes went smoothly and it made the film all the more interesting. I really wish that all films could be paced like this one. I think that the action in this film made the film incredibly interesting and the science of it honestly made us think.

FINAL PACING GRADE: 100/100

ADVERTISING: The advertising was just great. I mean did you see them? They literally jumped off the page. Lucas is incredible at making ads and I only wish that he can make them for almost every one of my films. I think the ads for “Time Shock” were some of the best that I’ve ever seen here on HTG. The website was also great and it had a nice, slick feel to it much like the ads themselves. I really can’t wait to see what Lucas comes up with next.

FINAL ADVERTISING GRADE: 100/100

WRITING: The overall writing of this film was pretty good. I liked the special effects in the film and how Random set them up. He wrote the characters well and made them interesting. I think the only problems I had were the cliches like the sex scene that we all saw coming because this kind of film always has to have a sex scene. Always! I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a film like this without at least some skin. The plot could be basic at some points but the scientific elements made it interesting and Random wrote those sequences well. I really want to see what Random comes up with next.

FINAL WRITING GRADE: 80/100

FINAL OVERALL GRADE: 76/100

J GRAHAM Reviews TIME SHOCK

This is a sugar rush of a B-movie. The film is a superbly paced, incredibly tight and well thought out actioner that does EVERYTHING right. It doesn't aspire, nor try to throw layers onto itself. It's a good old action film with great set pieces, strong characters and a good sense of humor to movie itself along. In short, it's pretty much the first made for James Cameron film I've read, even though he didn't direct it.

'Time Shock' starts Eric Bana as Dr. Nicholas Sinclair, a military officer who is questioning his workaholic ways, especially as he has a wife and a kid along the way (who is apparently going to play for The Red Socks, whoever they are). Sinclair's life however, revolves equally around his work, and he can't bring himself to leave it, even though his domestic situation has been nagging at him for years. The program he works with deals in time travel, so after everything obligatorily goes wrong with an experiment, Sinclair is transported to an alternate world with its own new history, and must find out how he got here, why it happened, and how to get back, with the omnipotent threat of a mercenary of a soldier, Shepard (Vin Diesel) watching him closely from behind. But perhaps Sinclair's biggest question mark is the presence of his wife Natasha (Eliza Dushku). The only problem is, she has no idea who he is, or what history they share.

The film borrows heavily from everything that's come before it, most notably Cameron's 'Terminator' movies (considering it deals with time travel, robots, and a similar 'fate brings the two together' love story). But it overcomes these predictable bumps in the road. Mainly because of the crack addict pacing. The film never lets up, moving from action sequence to mind blowing action sequence, while inserting heavy dollops of character development along the way, so we actually feel for these characters and their plight, no matter how clichéd they may be. Perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay the writer is that my guts actually twisted in on themselves during the film's climax.

The casting is note perfect. Everything in the film slots together easily without being too intrusive. Apart from Sinclair, most of the other characters remain underdeveloped, but serve their purpose perfectly, and also form a connection with the audience instantly based on their 'one noted-ness' if there was such a word.

An utterly badass film that will NOT waste your time. Believe me, you need to see this.

80/100

Ritchie Steven
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