Time After Time |
  • USA • 1979 • 112m •   • Directed by: Nicholas Meyer. • Starring: Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, Mary Steenburgen, Charles Cioffi, Kent Williams, Andonia Katsaros, Patti D'Arbanville, James Garrett, Keith McConnell, Leo Lewis, Byron Webster, Karin Collison, Geraldine Baron. • Music by: Miklós Rózsa.      H.G. Wells has just invented a time machine but hasn't tried it out yet. When he discovers that one of his friends is actually Jack the Ripper, Jack makes his escape using the time machine. Herbert follows Jack into the late 1970's where he meets Amy, a bank clerk, who teaches Herbert about life in 70's while they pursue Jack, who is enjoying the more violent society in which he continues his murderous activities.
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Review:
Some things about the machine made little sense to me. Like in the original story, the machine doesn't move through space - only through time. That was established. But then Wells makes the comment that moving forward or backward in time depends on whether the machine is travelling eastward or westward. How can it be travelling in either direction if it doesn't move through space? And how, if it doesn't move through space, did the machine take both Wells and Stevenson to San Francisco in 1979? Just because it had been found and put on display in a San Francisco museum? Wouldn't where it ended up in the future be dependent on where it started? I was confused by all that to be honest. But, getting over that confusion, I found a story that was actually quite entertaining.
It's exciting enough. Not edge of your seat stuff, but you do find yourself rooting for Wells as he tries to track down Stevenson, knowing that if the Ripper is left loose there's going to be a blood bath in San Francisco, which has already started by the time Wells arrives, two prostitutes having been murdered. The movie has an amusing "fish out of water" aspect to it as we watch Wells try to come to terms with this very new and different environment - 1979 San Francisco being much different than 1893 London, where he began. There was also a really nice chemistry between McDowell and Steenburgen, who meet as Wells exchanges some 19th century English pounds for American dollars. There's an attempt at linking the story to Wells' real life through Steenburgen. She plays Amy Robbins - and Wells really did marry a woman who was one of his students named Amy Robbins in 1895. So the story, which has them falling in love in 1979 in San Francisco and then returning to London in 1893 offers a sci-fi version of how the two met.
I also found myself thinking about Nicholas Meyer, who directed this. Meyer is probably best known for his involvement with some of the Star Trek movies - and he helped write the screenplay for "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home." It was also a time travel movie, with the crew of the Enterprise facing the same fish out of water experience in San Francisco. I wondered how much that screenplay might have been influenced by Meyer's work with "Time After Time."
On the surface, this movie does sound silly. But it turns out to be a pretty well done and entertaining movie.
Review by sddavis63 from the Internet Movie Database.
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