Wonderfully offbeat film!

Overrated and overhyped

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Do you want an entertaining tale, or are you expecting a movie to deliver a precise rendition of a large book? This is a fun movie with decent good guys and bad guys and some archaeology and some time travel. They never pretended they were doing Shakespeare, so don't expect it. I saw this back when it first came out, and borrowed it from a friend in 2018 because I had enjoyed it in 2003. It's a good movie, not a great one.

Overall I liked the movie, but naturally there were some bits that I didn't. I thoroughly enjoyed the plot, although they didn't go too much into why everything was happening. This was explained as 'we have no idea why this is happening, but it is', but by that point it didn't really matter, I just wanted to see some 1357 France.The other thing that I could do without was Kate's acting and constant tripping over air, but other than that the acting was pretty okay. Nostalgia played a big factor in my re-watching of this movie and I didn't regret it. I would recommend it, if you're in the mood for something light and not a movie that takes itself too seriously.

I'm not one of those movie watchers that all too often states, after a disappointing movie, "Well that was two hours of my life wasted." I always felt that phrase was thrown in a flippant way by half- hearted movie goers. I may have to change my tune after watching Timeline. I have been searching and I just can't find much of anything positive to say about this movie. The benefit of watching a lot of movies is of course seeing great films, especially ones you may not have seen otherwise. The downside to this formula is that the more movies you see, the higher your chances exist of seeing a movie that is just dreadful.Timeline involves a group of archeology students, their professor, and his son. Their goal is to erect and use a 3-D fax machine to transport objects to different places and times. With this tool, they attempt to time travel. When our lovable professor, Professor Johnston (Billy Connolly) finds himself in 1357 France, it is up to his team of students, led by his son Chris Johnston (Paul Walker). What was supposed to be a simple retrieval and return to the present turned into a disaster with the team nearly being stranded in the middle of a war. When the lead of the team is killed, the inexperienced time hoppers are left to their own devices to try and get home safely, with only a limited amount of time to do so. One of the team members, Andre Marek (Girard Butler) finds love while in France, and decides to stay leaving his team in shock. Eventually, they make it back, with the professor, vowing never to time travel again.What could have been a great story was bogged down by poor acting, disjointed story-telling, and needless explanation. It's a time travel movie and at this point time travel is impossible, the audience understands this before the movie even begins, there is no need to explain to me the how the method of time traveling is working in the movie. I am quite comfortable with the suspension of disbelief it takes to enjoy a movie, had the director respected the audience more and cut down on the explanation, it could have been a more enjoyable experience. Cutting down the lengthy explanation probably wouldn't have made much of a difference though as the acting was far from good. Having never been a fan of Paul Walker or Girard Butler, I shouldn't have expected much from the acting in this film. Both of them were unbelievable in their character, and even though the story revolves around a group of time travelers, the group themselves lacked any chemistry. Even the love stories of the film lacked any passion to lend to their credibility.There was also absent a character in this film that one could root for. There was no one engaging in this film to grab the audience's attention. Timeline proves that a well-shot film will need more than looking good to be good. I am told by fans of the book, that the filmmakers took too many liberties with this film, perhaps which lends to my dislike of it, though having never read the book, because it is just too far out. With no good acting to experience again, a horrible story, and a poorly done far-fetched concept, the only thing I can be sure about Timeline is that I will never see it again.

This is a fun movie to watch, but it faithlessly follows Crichton's book of the same title. If you've already read the book, prepare to see too much left out and too much changed.But then if you've read Tolkien's The Hobbit and then watched in horror as Peter Jackson et al stretched a fairly short story into three full length feature films, adding stuff, changing stuff and deleting stuff, you'll know what I mean.Is faithfully following a book a prerequisite to making a good film? I say no. That's true even if the book is a classic piece of sci-fi literature (and Timeline is). Most theater-goers, movie renters and casual discount bin shoppers won't have read the book.But once you do see the film, then go read the book. Do it vice versa, and you'll be as disappointed as a Tolkien fan watching Jackson's butchery.