The Time Traveler's Wife: 2/10

There's random time traveling throughout the movie and the darn thing is still as predictable as a New York Knicks basketball season, 16 August 2009

Every so often there comes a movie so stupid, so revoltingly idiotic, so painfully dull, it pretty much affects your I.Q. in the process. Enter The Time Traveler's Wife. This movie is a confusingly awful storyline full of stupid characters making stupid decisions while not stupidly changing or developing their personality and then stupidly torturing the lives of other people in the process. If it isn't the lack of chemistry that hampers the movie, it's definitely the characters themselves. If that's not enough, then we can try all the inconceivable time traveling nonsense that doesn't quite connect with the rest of the story. Last but not least, if none of that fazes you, then we can include the pitiful ending, the terrible directing, mediocre musical score, or the writing that's about as lost as a blind drunk man inside a mirror maze.

The Time Traveler's Wife is based off of an Audrey Niffenegger novel that follows a couple whose relationship is repeatedly put to the test because of Henry's (Eric Bana) innate ability to travel through time at random moments or whenever he is under stress. His constant time traveling affects their chemistry, their friends, their family, and also eventually their chances of having children. Of course, for the critical, why would only Henry have the ability to travel through time in his family? If it's based off of genetics, surely someone else in the family could do it. Oh wait; this is me thinking too critically of a movie that fails to answer all the questions.

Bruce Joel Rubin is the man responsible for the screenplay. The novel is definitely a tough pill to swallow and a bit difficult to translate, that I shall admit. But, there's no need to maintain all the stupidity from the novel and also suck away at the chemistry. Also, whenever a movie about unexpected and random time travel becomes predictable, we have a serious problem on our hands. The editing team didn't help, and neither did the director Robert Schwentke. Eric Bana and the lovely Rachel MacAdams did the best they could, but the chemistry just wasn't there---especially when compared to other MacAdams movies like The Notebook and even Wedding Crashers.

Time traveling is an extremely tough concept, because whenever you look hard enough into it, there will always be flaws in the script. The only exceptions to the inconsistencies are when time traveling isn't a major major part of the script, instead serving more as a plot detour (See: Meet the Robinsons, Austin Powers). Back to the Future and eventually the television show Lost worked the idea perfectly because they established the ground rules and maintained them. The Time Traveler's Wife on the other hand, is about as consistent as a broken metronome. Rules are broken, bent, twisted, torn, and would ultimately be avoided as the third act approaches. In the first act, it is established that no matter how hard you try, you can't change the future. Then in the second act, our main character manages to alter the future after dwelling into the past.

Then adding to the pain is the stupidity of our characters. If you know what causes your time travels most of the time, why does it take an act and a half to finally try to do something about it? If you know your eventual fate, why not prepare better for it? If you know something bad is going to happen, why save the bad news for a birthday party? And for God's sakes, why do you complain that the man is never home when you knew that he time travels at random moments!!?!?!!? It's basically like complaining that doughnuts have far too much fat while you are chomping down on your twelfth Krispy Kreme.

Bottom Line: Stupider than the log that's rotting outside my apartment, The Time Traveler's Wife is an utterly lifeless and pathetic love story that's chock full of predictability, incoherent story lines, and an inability to make me care five minutes into the schlock. Sci-fi and romance can be perfectly woven together with proper pacing, care, and attention to detail (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). However, the beginning of the movie starts predictably, and then enters 25 minutes of confusing the viewer, and by the time the romance gets going and the drama kicks in, you'll stop caring.

I have no idea how the novel is. If the movie was accurate, then we have nothing to blame except the writer of the book and the movie bosses that decided to greenlight this trash. If done inaccurately, then we have the director and writer to blame for taking the novel into a whole new level of lame. Either way, this movie doesn't tug at the heartstrings like decent romantic dramas, and does not intrigue in any way like decent sci-fi films. Just avoid it, the movie sucks, and there's so much better out there and so many other superior ways to waste 107 minutes of your life.

Extra Note: This is for those who didn't get the opening reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Knicks_seasons