by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden
In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s sci-fi/comedy Tim Travers & the Time Traveler's Paradox from An Immortal and Stimson Snead.
Synopsis
A scientist creates a time machine and kills their younger self to see what would happen. And that self-obsessed, misanthrope, mad genius of a scientist is Tim Travers (Samuel Dunning). And the universe was bad enough with only one of him.
The Good
Joseph: Tim Travers & the Time Traveler's Paradox boasts fun lead performances by Samuel Dunning as the titular scientist and Felicia Day as radio show producer Delilah, with a fine supporting cast led by director Snead as a frustrated would-be assassin. Highly impressive to me was J.D. McKee’s editing wizardry, as the cuts between the multiple Tim Travers are about as perfectly timed as imaginable. The special visual effects from VFX Supervisors Travis Berry and McKee are also wonderfully realized.
Mike: It’s hard to throw a rock at the cinematic landscape and NOT hit a movie that doesn’t deal with time travel or alternate universes. From obvious hits like Back to the Future, lesser known fare like Primer, and genre classics like The Planet of the Apes, there’s a little something for everyone insofar as the type of time travel rules and reality that they want. Tim Travers & the Time Traveler's Paradox leans more towards “smart sci-fi” than Back to the Future which is much lighter and not too concerned with the rules or science of it all.
If you’re in with the “smart sci-fi” you’ll find a film with great performances all around. Especially worth noting is Samuel Dunning as Tim Travers is fantastic as he brings all of the versions of himself to life with each one bearing ever so slight differences from most of the others. Having to play against himself in well over half of the movie’s runtime is no easy feat.
A big shout-out goes to the effects which look much better than I suspect the budget would imply. There is a bit of caveat to this which I will get into in the next section.
The Bad
Joseph: I grew up on time travel fare such as the 1960 feature film adaptation of H.G. Well’s The Time Machine, the original Planet of the Apes franchise, and the Irwin Allen 1966-67 television series The Time Tunnel. That’s where my heart is at regarding time travel fare, along with, admittedly, my head. I like my science fiction simple and when it comes down to following the theoretics of time travel, black holes, and related matters in cinema, it’s not for me. That’s wholly subjective, of course, and my “The Bad” is somebody else’s “The Great.” Granted, Tim Travers & the Time Traveler's Paradox is a science fiction comedy that attempts to tackle quite a lot regarding philosophy, religion, and love, but it does feel a bit long for its 110 minutes running time.
Mike: The biggest knock on Tim Travers is going to be a truly subjective one and it involves the “smart sci-fi” which is heavy on jargon that the Average Joe (not OUR Joe, he’s far from average), may get a little lost with while trying to apply it to Travers’ theories. It’s not that it needs to be “dumbed down” or anything - far from it - but I can certainly see some people wishing it was more H.G. Wells and less Albert Einstein.
Snead tries to cram a lot into the film which results in a nearly two hour runtime which feels about 15 minutes too long. A few scenes run a little longer and probably could have been edited down a few minutes each without losing any of the message(s).
There also the small matter of the effects which, while atypical for an indie movie, still rely heavily on CGI which, in this case, look a bit rough with gun shots and blood splatter. This was a bit disappointing considering the quality of a lot of the other effects.
The Verdict
Joseph: With interesting reflections on existential questions examined through a science-fiction lens, Tim Travers & the Time Traveler's Paradox offers plenty of entertainment, including some genuinely funny surprises and decidedly offbeat sequences. Though not exactly my style of time travel tale, I still recommend it for general viewers and especially those who enjoy a little scientific reflection in their fantastical fare.
Mike: With a quality cast giving a 110%, production values that are not indicative of what I’m sure was a small budget, and a meaningful message of self-love and self-acceptance (which might be exemplified a bit too earnestly for some people), this is a dark comedy with plenty of cerebral jargon involving theories of time travel and The Grandfather Paradox, along with a ton of blood and guts.
While there are a ton of time-travel movies out there, having Tim Travers & The Time Traveler's Paradox among them makes us all a little luckier.
Tim Travers & the Time Travelers Paradox
Directed By: Stimson Snead
Written By: Stimson Snead
Starring: Samuel Dunning, Joel McHale, Danny Trejo, Felicia Day
Run Time: 1h 50m
Rating: NR
Release Date: 2024
No trailer was available as of our screening