Tim Travers and the Time Traveler's Paradox

The premise was awesome, but the movie failed in nearly every way to capitalize on it.

The characters are all irredeemably unlikable. Joel McHale and Felicia Day are wasted.

The screenwriter suffers from the most limited vocabulary I've ever heard.

The whole auto-masterbatory-homo-clone-orgy was the lowest of all possible hanging fruit.

The ending is unearned and pretentious; nothing indicates that the character has grown or changed for the better - at least not the one left in charge.

I laughed twice during the entire film. While I wish I could get my money back, I really wish I could time travel to before I watched this awful film.

Tim Travers is what I like to call a beer movie. Have a beer or two, or a whiskey, or your chill-out of choice, sit down, and let yourself laugh. Don't overthink it. The science quoted is cutting edge, but the plot is a deliberate call back to late 20th century camp and cult.

Sam Dunning delivers a surprisingly nuanced performance for a man who is playing opposite himself much of the time. It is completely believable, a la Eddie Valiant in Roger Rabbit. I was surprised that despite the entirely similar wardrobe (there are differences) and minimal visual changes, I could typically figure out which Tim was on screen by facial expression and small tics given to each version. The only flaw in this film is that Tim's redemption arc is subtle, and the two key scenes could be missed or misread (especially if you've had an extra beer to go with your beer movie.) However, Sam's Tim absolutely delivers the sort of redemption one can believe for a fundamentally self-absorbed man who can't stop himself from catering a bit too much to himself.

While Tim himself is funny (if for all the wrong reasons -- enjoy them) the supporting cast, even one-scene wonders and tough-guy Danny Trejo, deliver surprisingly good laughs. Especially when the film takes the time to show where reality, not movie logic, starts setting in for some folks and they try to tap out only to be sucked back in because you can't unknow things.

The movie does go on a bit long, and I'm never a Felica Day fan. That said, the movie keeps up the pace by taking everything at an almost caffeinated pace. I also feel that many women will appreciate the Deliah character because of how relatable her arc is -- seeing a man who could be something great, but just chooses to instead lean into everything that makes him hard to like. I love that this film doesn't somehow force a romance, but instead lets Deliah give a realistic portrayal of a disgusted woman.

Lots of easter eggs for those of us who grew up on 80s and 90s films. I don't always like that (it can feel too cheap an attempt at nostalgia) but all of them were played note-perfect and with the sort of nods and cues in the film that tell the audience that is was absolutely on purpose and meant as homage or parody.

Is it the stuff of camp and cult legend? I have no idea. Time will tell. But if your Friday night gang can appreciate a rude joke and has ever descended into absurdity, this is a solid choice for movie night.

Tim Travers was not what I expected when I saw it, and it was refreshing. It did not offer too much fluff. It jumped right in and went for it from the start. It had a wicked sense of humor from the start, and got more and more crazy (in a good way) as the movie went along. I was laughing along the whole way. Besides the humor, it did offer some interesting time theory ideas, which the nerd in me enjoyed as well. The actors were all good in their roles, some even playing characters that they normally don't play, which was a fun surprise. But one has to give a shout out to Samuel Dunning. He did quite well acting, no matter what the story called for. Overall, I think the movie was a fun watch. My main judgements of a movie is if I left the theater in a good mood with money well spent and whether I would see the movie again. And the answer was yes to both.

Apparently going back in time and killing your younger self _doesn't_ wipe you out of existence but breaks something fundamental about the nature of reality. I learned this while attending a screening at deadCenter Film Festival 24. Once freed from the constraints of The Paradox, Tim proceeds to use the time machine as more of a Tim Travers factory, producing many Tim Travers who each attempt to forge their own path with their own new experiences. This is confusing and disrupting to everyone else and indeed to reality itself which proceeds to become more and more chaotic. It was a crazy ride which I quite enjoyed.

A truly enjoyable movie, that keeps you off balance (and seriously amused) from the very start, because it is difficult to anticipate moment-to-moment. The main scientist character is unusual and gets explored in ways one wouldn't get to explore if it were not for there being so many of him. Sometimes time-travel/multi-universe stuff can be irritating, but not so here, maybe because it is not a tool to achieve something but the thing that is attempted to be understood, and that keeps the mystery and plot going, all the while you can't decide whether you are rooting for the mad scientist(s) to succeed or to be stopped.