Hey folks, Harry here with Hopchic and a look at this quasi-religious flick called TIME CHANGER. I saw a really wonderful religious film at Sitges directed by the ol Paul Verhoeven actor Jerome Krabbe called THE DISCOVERY OF HEAVEN, and I know that the religious nature of that film would alienate some, but I really dug it. Reminded me of a really messed up ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE with an Old Testement sort of Divining Power. Anyway, I'll write about that film later, for now, here's Hopchic and TIME CHANGER...
You can call me "Hopchic," which is an slang word in the Uzbek language (Uzbekistan, where I once lived) meaning "Well, alright then." I have submitted a couple of possible scoops this week that have not yet been printed (the new Wallace and Gromit shorts available online, the indefinite delay of Phone Booth because of the sniper shootings in Virginia), but this is my first time to submit a review.
You haven't heard of this movie. It's called Time Changer, and it opens October 25th in about 390 theaters nation wide, with hopes of expanding if it does well. The reason that you haven't heard of it is probably because it was made by Christians, and the press doesn't like to give much of that stuff much attention. Usually that's because the movies or books made by Christians are poor incompetent imitations of other media, but not always. (For example, the Veggie Tales movie, as kids movies go, is pretty good; it has grossed more than the much higher profile Powerpuff Girls did, is a lot funnier, and has gotten little attention. Not even Entertainment Weekly has bothered to review it yet--even after its $6 million+ opening weekend-- and they review about anything.) But this movie feels a little different.
A little. You have to understand where I'm coming from. I got an advance copy of this film because I work at a church. Yes, I am a "believer." I have very little doubt that the whole Bible is Truth and I have experience to back it up. But I am also a film-lover. I have my degree in film, and I do film work here at the church. My favorite shows of all time include "Buffy," "The Prisoner" and "The Simpsons," and this puts me in a small minority of Christians. Sometimes it makes me a hypocrite. But because I love film, I am honestly able to step back and say that most Christian media sucks. I'm sorry, it just does. It's laughable. The Omega Code--terrible. The Left Behind books can be entertaining, but as literature goes, they are poorly written. And so on. So I am always skeptical when something comes out marketed to Christians. I have a problem with that whole idea of a separate Christian market anyway, but most of the product just stinks.
Onto the film. Time Changer, thematically, is an answer, a counterargument, to Changing Lanes. No, really. Plotwise, it's sort of like Changing Lanes meets a reverse Back to the Future. Or meets that lame Jean Reno movie that came out last year where he travels forward in time to now. It's lead actor you've never heard of--D. David Morin--but it has a few actors you have heard of--The Love Boat's Gavin McCleod for one, and comedian Paul Rodriguez (I last saw him in Rat Race) for another. Plus Hal Linden from Barney Miller, and one guy you'll recognize as being "one of those guys who is always in movies." (If this sounds improbable, tough. Check out www.TimeChangerMovie.com if you don't believe me.) The story concerns Morin's character, Carlisle, a professor in the 1890s, who is trying to get an endorsement from a board of professors at a seminary for a book he has just completed. All of the professors agree to the endorsement but one--McCleod's character, who disagrees with an argument in the book that you can teach morality apart from a belief in God. The argument goes on and on, until McCleod's character reveals he has a time machine and sends Carlisle 100 years into the future to check out how well morality has done apart from God. The rest of the movie shows Carlisle wandering around the present day in shock and then going back.
Is it any good? Yes and no. The first act drags a little bit. Morin's performance is a bit stiff in the beginning, and his character comes off as extremely whiny over this endorsement thing. The build up to the time machine takes too long--too many meetings with the professors, too much slightly-cheesy dialogue trying to sound old by refusing to use contractions and stuff like that. When the time machine introduced, the explanation for it is typical B-movie cheesy: "My father built it. It works by electricity stored up from the sun." McCleod actually says at one point, "It's copmlicated and I don't have time to explain how it works right now." Convenient. No worse than a lot of secular stuff, but not genius either.
When Carlisle hits modern times, the movie picks up considerably. The many shocks Carlisle experiences in the future are handled with a fair amount of humor--I even laughed out loud a few times. There are some awkward moments with people acting not-so-realistically, but those are countered with several genuine moments, and Carlisle's shock and confusion actually manage to get us seeing everything through his eyes, and we become shocked or confused ourselves. Morin's acting improves a lot. He meets Paul Rodriguez's character "Eddie" in a laundromat, as Eddie listens to baseball on headphones. The scene is done in such a way that I felt like I was looking at something foreign as I saw the washing machines and the headphones. Well done.
The production isn't bad at all, especially considering the film cost less than $1 million. It looks way more authentic than the several million dollar Left Behind film did. It requires little special effects, and those are cheap but not cheesy. The 1890s sets are small but feel authentic, and for modern times they obviously got permission to just film all over a real city, so that certainly looks authentic.
Does it present its argument convincingly? Well, the argument is pretty simplistic, but I believe it to be a good argument few people ever consider. In the end of Changing Lanes, you got the impression that Tolkin, the screenwriter, was trying to say something along the lines of, "Acquire a moral code even though it will have no real basis. Morality is subjective, but be nice anyway." And I think that's a crappy argument. The point of Time Changer seems to be this: Without God as the eternal source of morality there is no morality. The existentialists got it half right. I cannot say any one thing is right or wrong if there's no eternal source for it, because your opinion could be different, and who's to say what's True then? Some people would say the government, the majority rule, but we know that to be dumb. Most people in Uzbekistan, where I once lived, don't like black people, though they've never seen one in person. Does that mean the majority is right? No, this film would say. Without God there is no morality--a person's conscience can say it's okay to go around shooting people with a rifle--it's fun!, they say--and who can say he is Ultimately Wrong? Either an eternal source, or no one. We may not LIKE what he does, but without God there is no ultimate truth. I find this argument simple and logically presented--not very well developed maybe, but a whole lot more convincing than Changing Lanes' "What the heck, just be moral."
So, to sum up: This is a Christian movie. It is not a classic but it a lot better than most Christian movies. It will make you think. It does not shove its message down your throat, which I hate, but more just says, "Here, think about this." It is a lot better than much of the empty stuff coming out this fall so far, and I wish people living near the 390 theaters would go see it. But they probably won't, because people tend to reject Christianity without really looking at what it claims, usually because they've met some Christians they don't like. But if you want to be challenged to think, to see the world as it is through a different set of eyes than your own, check it out next weekend. As a bonus, you even get to see a Love Boat alumni act!
Hopchic
