Why? That is the overriding question I took away from this film. Why? Why bother? If you are going to remake a film that was faithful to its source material and still holds up well today you’d better improve on said film. Or dramatically alter things enough that it stands up separately, but at the same time still works. Wells’ (Yes, he is HG Wells Great Grandson) version of The Time Machine does neither of these things. The film is in short a bloody mess.

Screenwriter John Logan’s (whom you may remember as the guy who tortured us with the wretched script for Star Trek: Nemesis) take on Wells’ material starts off fairly well. The addition of a doomed romance as the catalyst for the creation of the time machine is a decent idea. A decent idea however, that is hampered at every turn by the actress playing opposite Pearce. You see she has what can only be described as acting skills akin to a plank of wood. That aside, things just get incredibly silly as we move on.

Hartdegen’s next stop is our near future (2030ish as I recall). He takes in a talking billboard that is advertising nuclear blasting on the moon to create colonies. Uh-oh, that sounds ominous. But, he is still looking for answers so of he pops into a museum where we meet a sorry excuse for a character. Orlando Jones plays Vox, a museum hologram whose sole purpose is to rattle of reams of exposition. He also offers a laughable piece of post-modernism as he offers Hartdegen a copy of The Time Machine by HG Wells and then goes on to detail the 1960 film adaptation and musical. Oh, how I laughed…….

I could detail the rest of the plot, but suffice to say that Hartdegen heads back to his machine, avoids pieces of the falling moon, falls on the accelerator and wakes up in the year 800,000 or thereabout. This is where the film completely falls apart. Like the book and the other film this future sees humanity split into two species, the above land living Eli and the underground dwelling Morlocks. What follows is nothing more than a poorly staged action sequence (which is heavily reminiscent of Burtons Apes remake, not a good thing) as Hartdegen attempts to thwart the Morlocks and free the Eli.

Guy Pearce is a fine actor, but he is woefully misused here. He tries to show the pain at losing his fiancée, but the script won’t let him as it transforms him into an unlikely and wholly unconvincing action hero. Hard to believe, but Pearce is easily the best thing acting wise in the film. Mark Addy is an actor I despise and he does nothing here to win me over. I actually cringed during his final scene.

I have been tortured enough by Samantha Mumba’s musical ‘talents’ over the years, so lord knows I didn’t expect much from her as an actress. Nice to see she didn’t let me down; she is even stiffer and more wooden than the actress who plays the fiancée. It’s also nice to see that in 800,000 years time the Irish accent will still be prevalent! Jeremy Irons at least plays it for laughs. He looks like the bastard offspring of Boy George and Ziggy Stardust and he camps it up something rotten.

The Morlocks themselves are a disaster. Stan Winston is a name synonymous with quality make-up effects. The Terminator, Alien, Predator, these are just a few of the mans sterling credits. Why is it then that the Morlocks look like crap? They look like guys wearing those big wooden masks that primitive tribes have. The CGI for the action shots looks terrible too, with bad movement and bad detail. At least you can’t see the join between practical and CGI; both are as bad as each other.

The film is beset with a ludicrous amount of plot holes. The best one is when Pearce, Mumba and co out run an explosion that takes out a huge chunk of jungle, yeah right. I also found myself thinking, how do those cool looking Eli dwellings stay stuck to the side of those cliffs? Also, how can exposition hologram guy still be functioning 800,000 years on without electricity, regardless of the fact that the rest of the city he’s from no longer exists? There’s more, but I have tried to mentally block the pain……