Time After Time

Having a premise of HG Wells ( Yes that one ) pursue Jack the ripper ( Ditto ) to the 20th century has all the makings of a really camp and totally crap film , but despite the outrageous idea TIME AFTER TIME is a very enjoyable fantasy .

Unlike most time travel films ( THE TERMINATOR , BACK TO THE FUTURE not to mention several DOCTOR WHO and STAR TREK stories ) TIME AFTER TIME doesn`t really concern itself with concepts like the blinovitch limitation effect ie a temporal paradox , instead it concentrates on how a radical 19th century idealist like Wells would have found 20th century " Utopia " and how he would have been sickened by it . It`s here that the film works best with Wells travelling through the time vortex listening to the history of the 20th century and the scene with Wells and Jack watching television . It`s also interesting to note that the movie`s most amusing moments ( And they are genuinely amusing )are when Wells notices the difference in sexual mores of the present day . The film is much weaker when it switches to " Hero tracks down serial killer " type thriller but that`s not really what the film is about .

'Time After Time' is a good old fashioned entertaining adventure with plenty of thrills and a few chuckles. Fans of H.G. Wells' 'The Time Machine' and Ripper buffs will enjoy this movie the most, which covers similar territory to many of the stories of Kim Newman ('Anno Dracula',etc.) Like Newman's work it features a playful and irreverent attitude to 19th genre fiction and history. Malcolm McDowell and David Warner are both outstanding as friends turned enemies Wells and Jack The Ripper, who end up traveling to present day (that is late Seventies) San Francisco. Both actors are roughly the same age, emerged in the 60s, became well known for appearances in two of the early Seventies most controversial movies ('A Clockwork Orange' and 'Straw Dogs' respectively), and after this movie ended up appearing in all kinds of dumb action and straight to video b-grade trash, with sadly very few exceptions. 'Time After Time' features some of their best work, and the two obviously relished working together on such an original and imaginative project. Mary Steenburgen, an actress who has made little impression on me one way or the other, is more than adequate as Wells' love interest, and the supporting cast includes character actor Charles Cioffi (of 'Shaft' and countless TV shows). 'Time After Time' is simply one of the most entertaining SF thrillers ever made, and highly recommended to anyone who wants an intelligent and witty fun ride. A great movie well worth a rental.

"Time after Time" is a clever battle of wits between Jack the Ripper, who has used H.G. Wells' time machine to escape to the year 1979, and H.G. Wells, who steps into the machine to get to 1979 too, and chase after the Ripper. (This kind of brain-to-brain combat between two very special people is a theme that Nicholas Meyer will return to in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.")

Particularly interesting is how Jack the Ripper, an evil serial killer, finds himself completely at home in the year 1979, while H.G. Wells, with his idealistic dreams of a perfectible society, is completely out of place in our modern era.

Malcolm McDowell is believable yet comical as the intellectual Wells, almost bird-like in his quick, darting movements. David Warner is adequate as Jack the Ripper, but you don't get enough of a feeling of the Ripper's insanity and evil. Mary Steenburgen, as Wells' newfound love interest in 1979, acts well enough, but she delivers some of her lines unconvincingly.

The lush Miklos Rosza score is a treat.

Worth seeing.

"Time After Time" is an interesting movie. It has the legendary H.G. Wells chasing Jack the Ripper through time, from London in 1893 to San Francisco in 1979. Wells is played by Malcolm McDowell, as a young idealistic visionary and scientific genius, who looks upon the future as Utopia. (How many movies can you remember where McDowell was the good guy?) Jack the Ripper is played by David Warner, who exudes something cold and frightening as the infamous killer. While the future hardly turns out to be Wells' imagined Utopia, Jack embraces the prevalent violence of the 20th century. In "From Hell," Jack the Ripper said he had invented the 20th century. "Time After Time" gives that statement a kind of significance. The movie may not offer much to the many theories surrounding the Jack the Ripper mystery, but it's still enjoyable.

"Time After Time" was one of those movies of which I didn't even knew it existed. It certainly is a movie that deserves more recognition for this movie truly was one of the most entertaining movies I have seen in a while.

The story its concept is already one factor why I liked this movie so much. In the late 19th century The scientist H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) has build a time machine which his good friend John Leslie Stevenson aka Jack the Ripper (David Warner) uses when the police has just discovered his true identity. Ripper travels to the year 1979 and Wells, who feels responsible for his escape to the in his eyes future Utopian society of 1979, follows him to the future, in an attempt to catch him and bring him to justice and prevent him from making more victims in the future. I highly enjoyed this original story and concept and thought that it was perfectly executed by talented director Nicholas Meyer, who made his debut as a director with this movie. After this he made two more well known and widely appreciated Star Trek movies; "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan" and "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" which by the fans are often regarded as the best in the series of Star Trek movies.

The movie has a fantastic and typical '70's atmosphere which I always adore in movies. It's also filled with some typical '70's tense chase sequences, which are brilliantly filmed and edited. The cinematography itself is also at times refreshingly original, especially the perfectly done opening sequence of the movie in which Jack The Ripper makes another victim.

But the movie isn't just tense and original, it also is highly entertaining and it features some good humor. Of course having an 19th century main character who for the first time takes a look in the future 1979 is already good for some laughs. Such as the time were he visits a McDonald's or comes up with the fake alias Sherlock Holmes when he gets in contact with the police. There are countless 'little' fun parts like this in the movie which makes this movie a pleasant and entertaining one to watch as well as a tense nail biting thriller.

Malcolm McDowell is extremely good and convincing as a 19th century gentleman and scientist H.G. Wells. Honestely he plays his best role since "A Clockwork Orange". David Warner is also perfectly cast as Jack The Ripper. He's a perfectly scary and mysterious gentleman. Warner is perhaps well known to everyone for playing Spicer Lovejoy in the 1997 movie "Titanic". The movie also features a at the time still very young Mary Steenburgen in one of her very first movie roles. She also was superb and the talent was already showing. One year later she even already won an Oscar for the movie "Melvin and Howard".

The movie further more features a highly good and underrated musical score by well known Hungarian composer Miklós Rózsa.

This movie is terribly underrated in terms of how well known it is. This movie deserves to be seen by everybody for this movie is an entertaining one as well as a tense thriller, with some excellent performances by the cast and good directing by Nicholas Meyer.

8/10

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