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Visitors Review

Boba_Fett1138 2012-05-21 12:44:11

Highly entertaining movie with a tense story.

"Time After Time" was one of those movies of which I didn't even knewit existed. It certainly is a movie that deserves more recognition forthis movie truly was one of the most entertaining movies I have seen ina while.The story its concept is already one factor why I liked this movie somuch. In the late 19th century The scientist H.G. Wells (MalcolmMcDowell) has build a time machine which his good friend John LeslieStevenson aka Jack the Ripper (David Warner) uses when the police hasjust discovered his true identity. Ripper travels to the year 1979 andWells, who feels responsible for his escape to the in his eyes futureUtopian society of 1979, follows him to the future, in an attempt tocatch him and bring him to justice and prevent him from making morevictims in the future. I highly enjoyed this original story and conceptand thought that it was perfectly executed by talented directorNicholas Meyer, who made his debut as a director with this movie. Afterthis he made two more well known and widely appreciated Star Trekmovies; "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan" and "Star Trek VI: TheUndiscovered Country" which by the fans are often regarded as the bestin the series of Star Trek movies. The movie has a fantastic and typical '70's atmosphere which I alwaysadore in movies. It's also filled with some typical '70's tense chasesequences, which are brilliantly filmed and edited. The cinematographyitself is also at times refreshingly original, especially the perfectlydone opening sequence of the movie in which Jack The Ripper makesanother victim. But the movie isn't just tense and original, it also is highlyentertaining and it features some good humor. Of course having an 19thcentury main character who for the first time takes a look in thefuture 1979 is already good for some laughs. Such as the time were hevisits a McDonald's or comes up with the fake alias Sherlock Holmeswhen he gets in contact with the police. There are countless 'little'fun parts like this in the movie which makes this movie a pleasant andentertaining one to watch as well as a tense nail biting thriller.Malcolm McDowell is extremely good and convincing as a 19th centurygentleman and scientist H.G. Wells. Honestely he plays his best rolesince "A Clockwork Orange". David Warner is also perfectly cast as JackThe Ripper. He's a perfectly scary and mysterious gentleman. Warner isperhaps well known to everyone for playing Spicer Lovejoy in the 1997movie "Titanic". The movie also features a at the time still very youngMary Steenburgen in one of her very first movie roles. She also wassuperb and the talent was already showing. One year later she evenalready won an Oscar for the movie "Melvin and Howard".The movie further more features a highly good and underrated musicalscore by well known Hungarian composer Miklós Rózsa. This movie is terribly underrated in terms of how well known it is.This movie deserves to be seen by everybody for this movie is anentertaining one as well as a tense thriller, with some excellentperformances by the cast and good directing by Nicholas Meyer.8/10

2012-05-21 01:07:23

Finally Bought It

This review is from: Time After Time (Snap Case) (DVD) This is one of my favorite movies (time travel has always fascinated me). This one has several twists with both H.G. Wells and Jack The Ripper being joined in the same movie. Add in a young, very innocent appearing Mary Steinbergen and you have a very enjoyable film.

2012-05-20 02:12:34

Time After Time

This film has a very good plot of HG Wells (Malcolm McDowell) following former friend John Stevenson alias Jack the Ripper (David Warner) from 19th century London to 20th San Francisco via Wells' time machine. The scenes were Wells copes with 20th San Francisco culture are funny, and both actors perform well.

2012-05-19 19:02:55

Finally on DVD, OH yes!!!

This review is from: Time After Time (DVD) Well it has been many years since I saw this film but I loved it every time I saw it. Pretty sure I caught it on the big screen and then later on HBO or TV and maybe even rented once or twice. Now I'm going to buy this DVD and enjoy it many more times. Like the other person says, great acting, and story. Keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole way. Just get this film and you will enjoy it.

2012-05-12 17:51:54

Time After Time

This review is from: Time After Time (DVD) This movie isn't just a "chic flick" but science fiction based upon H.G. Wells book. The main character - H.G. Wells - portrayed by Malcomb McDowell creates a time machine. His friend unbeknownst to him, is Jack the Ripper, portrayed by David Warner, who steals Wells' time machine to go forward into 20th century San Francisco. Wells follows Jack, meets a foreign money exchange officer at a bank portrayed by Mary Steenburgen. And the adventure is on. Suffice it to say, Jack gets what he deserves in the end in an unexpected way, Malcomb McDowell and Mary Steenburgen's characters fall in love and the ending may be predictable, but the footnote at the end of the movie may be a bit of a surprise. The acting is excellent, the movie enjoyable without sex scenes and "shoot 'em up gunfire" yet the anticipation as McDowell and Steenburgen chase Warner is fun to watch. Enjoy this classic.

Sonya L Finkey 2012-05-12 03:12:00

A Good One

You'll find "Time After Time" still freshafter almost 20 years...you see our cultureviewed from a quaint perspective, howtwo highly intelligent time travellers fromthe 1890s cope, one enlightened, the otherwicked. The story was sensitively handled,good humor, great suspense, set in beautifulSan Francisco. Not the usual trite sci-fi.This one gets a "10".

Woodyanders 2012-05-11 07:04:18

A delightfully clever and inspired time travel science fiction thriller pip

1893. Victorian era London, England. Brilliant, but idealistic writerand scientist H.G. Wells (a wonderfully warm and engaging performanceby Malcolm McDowell) invents a time machine. Notorious psychopath Jackthe Ripper (superbly played with subdued menace by David Warner) usesthe time machine to travel to San Francisco, California in 1979. Wellsfollows after him. While searching for the Ripper Wells meets and fallsin love with sunny and liberated bank worker Amy Robbins (a fabulouslysweet and endearing portrayal by Mary Steenburgen). Writer/directorNicholas Meyer deftly blends elements of comedy, romance, thriller, andscience fiction into a fresh, witty and entertaining mix that movesalong at a brisk pace, delivers a substantial amount of suspense andexcitement, and radiates an utterly beguiling whimsical charmthroughout. Moreover, Meyer offers plenty of pointed social commentaryon the harsh violence and pervasive decadence of the modern age andmilks the fish out of water premise for all its worth as Wells figuresout how to order fast food at McDonald's and learns how to drive a carand operate an electric toothbrush. This movie further benefits fromuniformly excellent acting from a top-drawer cast: McDowell andSteenburgen display a truly enchanting screen chemistry (notsurprisingly, they were married for a short spell after appearingtogether in this film), Warner makes for a positively chilling Jack theRipper, Charles Cioffi acquits himself well in a sizable supportingrole as the disbelieving Police Lieutenant Mitchell, and PattiD'Arbanville contributes a wonderfully lively bit as perky Jack theRipper victim Shirley. Miklos Rozsa supplies a perfectly lush, robustand stirring score. Paul Lohmann's crisp cinematography likewise hitsthe bull's eye. A total treat.

2012-05-10 20:48:49

Mildly intriguing story premise, slow movie

This movie was altogether average. Slow, mildly entertaining, decent acting. Considering there are millions of movies to watch, I would not recommend spending 2 hours on it.

2012-05-02 14:55:20

"The future isn't what you thought. It's what I am!"

This is one of those rare films from my adolescence that I have a palpable memory associated with on its first viewing. It was released at the end of summer 1979 - I don't know whether school had started or not, but what I do remember is that I insisted quite vehemently on seeing it, and my mom acquiesced none too graciously - STAR WARS had made me a serious movie lover 2 years before and I was especially entranced by the few science fiction films that came our way. So my brother and I saw this after it had been out a week or two; it didn't last long and the theater had only 2 other patrons. We both loved it - it was the scariest and most intense film I'd seen at that point, I was 13 and my parents quite overprotective - and I'm glad to say that my love of the film has remained unchanged. Malcolm McDowell stars in one of his very best (and quite atypical) performances as H.G. Wells, who in 1893 isn't planning on writing about a "time machine", but has in fact built one, as he demonstrates to his guests at a dinner party reminiscent of the opening scene in the actual novel of the same name which was published (in reality) in 1895. He plans to head off into the future to find the utopia that he is certain will exist in a few generations....ah but his good friend John Leslie Stevenson (David Warner, quite chilling) has other plans, as Stevenson is in fact Jack the Ripper, and as the police knock on Wells' door, he makes his escape, to San Francisco in 1979, the machine having been physically moved from London after World War II. Luckily the time machine has several fail-safe mechanisms, one of which causes it to return to Wells, who sets out in pursuit to the "brave new world" of the future. And thus begins the story proper, a chase-thriller with Wells first trying to find Stevenson, then being himself chased as the Ripper needs a key that will prevent him being followed in the time machine. Along the way Wells meets a bank officer, Amy Robbins (Mary Steenburgen) who helps him to locate his nemesis and with whom he quickly falls in love. The love story and the thriller are really the principle genres here, and first-time director Meyer handles the latter with surprising ease - the romantic part wasn't too difficult to fake, as it wasn't in fact faked and McDowell and Steenburgen embarked on a 10-year marriage shortly after the film's release. There are a couple of strong and quite obvious themes that underlie the whole story - optimism vs pessimism, the need to take love wherever you find it, and the importance of hope even in the face of the obvious truth that "progress" isn't always positive. There's a great scene in a hotel early on where Stevenson shows Wells just how misguided he's been - but Wells stubbornly persists in his optimism almost to the last, and McDowell is superb at conveying the fish-out-of-water, gentle soul with, at last, just enough steel to prevail over murder and time. The San Francisco locations are nicely used, and there are numerous brief homages (some perhaps accidental) to earlier famous SF-set classics like DIRTY HARRY, BULLITT, and VERTIGO; Miklós Rózsa's fine score even quotes Herrmann's music for the Hitchcock film - or comes awfully close to doing so - in the Muir Woods scene. If you're someone who is insistent on absolute historical and scientific accuracy in your science fiction, I'm afraid you'll be let down - the explanation behind the time machine and the one paradox that is involved isn't terribly convincing, and the ripper murders occurred in 1888, not 1893. Die-hard Wellsians (yes, there are a few) regularly complain about McDowell's "wrong" accent, the real author's harsh Cockney having been considered grating and unpalatable to film audiences - but as I say above, to think of this as hard, serious social science fiction is IMO a mistake, it's a romantic thriller with just enough social comment to make the characters more interesting and believable. It's exciting, fun, and charming, and it has a feel of the old "classy" Hollywood methods for doing science fiction and horror (the violence is quite muted and more intense for leaving much to our imagination), with special effects definitely of much less importance than they usually have been in genre films released since this one. Not a "great" film, perhaps, or a particularly important or life-changing one, but it certainly hits all the right notes for me.The disc offers a commentary track featuring director Meyer and star McDowell that is one of the better examples I've heard. Meyer's explanation for his use of the particular hotel he picked for the chase between Stevenson and Wells to begin in had me hitting my head and saying "of course"; it's nice to find a director of science fiction and fantasy who actually knows the classics of the genre.

2012-05-02 06:16:09

Time After Time

This hard to find DVD is a great thriller. It combines time travel with Jack the Ripper and has clever dialogue and plenty of action The cast is outstanding.

KFL 2012-04-28 16:27:04

Bizarre and disjointed

If you think for thirty seconds about the story development, you're boundtostart shaking your head.... There's just too much here that doesn't makesense, despite an interesting premise and rather likeablecharacterizationsof both Wells and his late-20th C girlfriend.If you are capable of Olympian suspension of disbelief, if you're able tooverlook huge plot holes and unexplained plot twists, you might like thisone. If not, there are better SF choices out there.

Vedek 2012-04-27 22:35:05

A good suspense movie, effects aren't everything

This was an interesting movie, an interesting premise. Imagine H.G. Wells getting the inspiration for his Time Machine novel by actually being the Time Traveller himself. I have always liked this movie because it the characters and acting are strong, a great cast including Malcolm McDowell and David Warner. This movie doesn't rely on special effects, the story is strong. If you like a good murder, suspese thriller, this is the movie for you.

2012-04-25 06:13:04

Stands the test of time (no pun intended)

This review is from: Time After Time (DVD) This was a favorite of mine when it came out and watching it with my daughter it was fun to see her get as engrossed with it as I remember being when I first saw it.Strong performances by the cast help pull off this rather unbelievable tale. Some of the modern day settings are kind of humorous watching it now, but that just added extra charm to the viewing.Close to 30 years later, this movie still ranks as one of my favorites and this viewing did little to change my mind on that.

george.schmidt 2012-04-24 18:12:02

Crafty sci-fi thriller

TIME AFTER TIME (1979) *** Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, MarySteenburgen. Ingenious What IF sci-fi thriller with the premise of HGWells (splendidly finicky McDowell) creating an actual time machinethat transports Jack The Ripper (devilishly evil Warner) into modernday San Francisco with Wells in hot pursuit to stop the serial killerfrom continuing his historical homicidal tendencies and Steenburgen asthe outlet for both their agendas.Swiftly executed and giddy in Wells' fish-out-of-water discoveries likeordering in McDonald's (!) Look sharp for a very young Corey Feldman asWells' first 20th century encounter (!)

2012-04-18 07:24:29

Interesting idea, good film

Jack the Ripper (David Warner) uses H.G. Wells' (Malcolm McDowell) time machine to escape justice and travel to 1979 San Francisco, with Wells in hot pursuit. That's the premise behind an entertaining film written and directed by Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek 2 & 4, The Day After). After a somewhat slow start, the film picks up once Wells reaches the future. Meyer shows acute awareness of how the real Wells might react in 1979 San Francisco: ever the inquisitive mind, Wells studies and learns as much as he can and never seems overwhelmed. After all, he was a visionary who wrote grand imaginings of the future; to a degree, he was already a man out of his time. The same is true for Jack the Ripper, who would feel more at home in our time (as stated in the film; in our time, he would be another Dahmer or Gacy). Simple things like that make this movie a cut above the average time-travel/fish-out-of-water film. It falls into convention at times, recycling some very familiar elements, but it still manages to entertain, thanks in large part to brisk direction and a marvelous performance by Mary Steenburgen as Wells' liberated love interest. McDowell and Warner are also good, and McDowell's performance is nicely restrained (given his occasional tendency to overact) in one of his better roles. I also liked the realization of Wells' time machine--very similar to how it is described in his book, but with a few tweakings to make it look a tad more "realistic." The special effects aren't great, but they are merely a sideshow to the plot. Also, some of the attempts at social commentary come across as preachy and heavy-handed. Never mind all of that. What matters here is plot and characterization. It's not a completely satisfying film, but it's intelligently done and engaging, with good doses of romance and suspense. An interesting speculation: Imagine the same film with Sherlock Holmes, or Thomas Edison, or Jules Verne transported to the future.

rkallao 2012-04-17 13:49:08

Here are my top ten movies for science fiction .

Time after Time ****** , perfect.The Abyss ******* , masterpiece .Empire Strikes Back , ***** , excellent .Star Trek ll : The Wrath of Khan , ***** , excellent .Mad Max , **** , very good .Close Encounters of the Third Kind , ****** ,perfect .The Andromeda Strain , **** , very good .Logan's Run , **** , very good .When Worlds Collide, ******* , masterpiece .War of the Worlds , ***** , excellent .But the top two are the best of the best .Other notables are Andromeda , because I like Liv Tyler . The Lord OfThe Rings/ Return of the King only , and The New King Kong , directedby Peter Jackson . *** , good .

2012-04-15 23:01:33

I Love this Movie!

I bet I've watched this movie a dozen times. First saw it when it was on HBO, bought it on VHS, now I own the DVD. It's just a good movie that you can watch and enjoy without having to derive some great meaning from it like you do so many of the movies now days. It's a cute love story with a lot of suspense thrown in.

Nichole Clay 2012-04-15 11:53:30

It's a wild ride, time travel sci-fi movie ever!

"Time After Time" kept me the edge of my seat since I first saw it. MalcolmMcDowell is very cool as the writer H.G. Wells who builds the timetraveller. David Warner is so wicked as Jack The Ripper,this is one of thebest villainous roles that David Warner had played. Anyway,the twocharacters are real-life people but NOT the movie itself!!! In this moviewell written and directed by Nicholas Meyer (who directed the Star Treksequels which he let David Warner star as the Klingon ambassasdor in thelast sequel with original members). This movie has the sci-fi writer and theinfamous serial killer as best friends and one of them escaped in the timemachine because the police came and then the suspense-fun had started. Oneof the funny parts are when McDowell was calling McDonalds 'McDougals' andthe coolet part was Jack didn't know what's grass mean. David Warner as JackThe Ripper was the best highlights of his cult favorite flick always! thismovie is absolutely recommended. TIME AFTER TIMEROCKS!

tobieslilgurl6 2012-04-14 19:30:00

If only you knew how much I LOVE this movie!

I love this movie so much, I don't know how to describe it. I go thru somany emotions thru the movie that I felt manipulated, and it felt great,forcrying out loud! I'm only guessing at how far thru the movie I was when Iremember reacting to something important, so bear with me here:When I first saw the credits my first reaction was, "Hey, it's the baddudefrom ST Generations, and the director of Wrath of Khan!Cool!"My second reaction 19 minutes(?) into the movie, "Hey, for a movie thathaslate 70's post-Star Wars effects, it's awesome!"My third reaction 20 minutes(?) the movie was, "Hey, its the kid from thatmovie I like , and he's so adorable! I want to hug him!"My fourth reaction half an hour(?) thru the movie, "Dude, that Jack theRipper guy is cute!"Fifth reaction halfway thru, "Oh, that's so sweet..."Sixth reaction at end, *Sob* "I hate sad endings..."Yes, I actually said all this stuff, and soon after I began toritualistically(whew!) watch this on a regular basis, and soon I couldn'teven go a day without watching this at least once. And I haven't gottiredyet. All the actors were cool, especially David Warner. I really wantedtosee more of him instead of just cutting to him slashing someone. Even ifthere was a scene of him just sitting there watching TV, I would be happy.May the Schwartz be wit you!

2012-04-14 05:55:59

Movie Review

This review is from: Time After Time (DVD) I've seen this movie several times and wanted to add it to my collection. I received the movie within the time frame quoted.