Director: Chris Reading
Writers: Chris Reading, Anna-Elizabeth Shakespeare, Hillary Shakespeare
Stars: Ruth Syratt, Megan Stevenson, Brian Bovell
Synopsis: Best friends Ruth and Megan run a vintage shop in Muswell Hill. Stumbling across a time machine, they embark on trips to the past to stock their shop with no idea of the irreparable damage they’re causing to the fabric of the universe.
Time travel is a concept that has an indelible imprint on pop culture. Since H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel, “The Time Machine,” we have thought and speculated about what would happen if someone could travel to the past or the future, faster than just aging forward in real time. Time travel has become a well explored trope and an excellent source of comedy plots. There is no way that going to the past or future from this present wouldn’t be inherently funny to an outside observer.
Time Travel is Dangerous taps this comedy vein and finds some precious metals. The idea of two antique shop owners using a time machine to get antiques before their time is funny. Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan’s (Megan Stevenson) forays into the past are full of good sight gags. The two of them being an ugly tourist archetype and interrupting the goings on around them for their own shallow thoughts is also amusing. Though it’s mostly the concept that’s amusing because there’s a major stumbling block in the actual structure of the film.
The problem with the film is that in addition to time travel shenanigans, it also employs the mockumentary format. In and of itself, the mockumentary can be fun and funny, but director and co-writer Chris Reading, along with his co-writers Anna-Elizabeth and Hillary Shakespeare, never seem to grasp the logic of it. Even though mock is in the portmanteau name of the genre, the other side of it, documentary, has rules. There are sequences that the camera crew are seemingly a part of that they physically couldn’t be, one because the time machine is an old bumper car that seats two and two because there are fantasy sequences within the film. This is a bit of a nitpick, but it’s sloppy filmmaking to employ the genre trappings if you aren’t going to fully commit.
It also doesn’t help that the focus of the story is on the wrong couple of characters. Ruth and Megan are fine. They have their moments, but their stupidity is grating and their friendship is toxic. It would have been much more interesting to be more focused on the members of T.E.S.T.I.S., a group of science enthusiasts and inventors. The story of Ralph (Brian Bovell) and Robert (Johnny Vegas) who had a science education show in the ’90s is also much more fascinating than Ruth and Megan. The members of the science group, the interpersonal politics, and the goofiness of self-elected chairman Martin (Guy Henry) is where the real comedy comes from.
There’s also the fascinating sojourn into The Unreason, a dimension beyond time and space where lost things end up, and it is there that picks the plot up. The production design of The Unreason is eerie and haunting. The people trapped there, playing a nonsensical game that they’ve been making up rules for for eons, are a very fun addition as is Gavin the Octopus (Brian Blessed) who terrified Ralph and Robert, but is quite pleasant when you get to know him. It’s the type of place we’ve all imagined when something disappears from our lives with no reason or logic.
Time Travel is Dangerous is far more amusing than funny. For some of us it will be a laugh out loud kind of comedy. It has the DNA, but for most of us it will be an amused smirk sort of experience. It’s not poorly made, but it does take narrative and genre swings that make for a tepid experience at times. The strange, wonderful clips of Ralph and Robert’s show save some of it and the folks in T.E.S.T.I.S. save some more, but all in all it’s a bit of a shrug. It’s the kind of movie you put on when you’re in the mood for something light and aren’t put out by the experience on the other side.
