Intersect:

      To be honest, the only thing that comes to my mind when I think about this film is false advertising. The preview is utterly fascinating and promises intense action in otherworldly or futuristic environments. This is totally far from the truth.

      Instead 95% 0f the film takes place in USA  suburbian  at school  and at-home settings infused with long duration conversations. It focuses on the inventor of the time machine as a kid. Elaborates on his relationship with this girl, his best friend and future scientific collaborator, and some bullies. 

     As these seemingly irrelevant interactions slowly played out, I kept trying to figure out what happened to the film's initial drama where one scientist seems to be killed by the effect of time travel and the other sees mysterious figures menacingly flickeing in and out of the shadows. As nothing relevant to those initial scenes  seemed to happen, and three-fourths of the film was gone, I began to worry  about getting duped by false advertising.

  Then a hasty attempt at interrelating everything was made with just five minutes remaining.  But it was too clumsy too little and too late and was as frustratingly confusing as the rest of the film. Suddenly all the hype that had appeared in the preview was playing out as it had in the preview.  In short, a hasty conclusion to the movie was presented as if it was the film's essence. Nice touch. But serves me right for not checking it out with Rotten Tomatoes first.


    Absolutely no sense of impending danger was created. A few menacing centuries were briefly shown and increased anticipation of action. But these   was quickly described as harmless  observers or watchers. What they are doing rummaging through trash bins in deserted allyways  is a mystery never explained. Then suddenly, since time was running out, they are efusively  described as  dangerous, and the kid is warned that it is his invention that has allowed them to enter our real.  Then the film ends with some unexplained scenes that seem to show the kid as a grownup attempting to destroy the machine by jumping into its maw?


     No, the acting wasn't bad. It's just that the acting was not about what the preview had promised and the film seemed disjointed or a cacophony of scenes striving for thematic unity but failing. For example, what does bullying do to promote the theme of time travel? What does announcing that the fierce-looking creatures are harmless increase drama? What does the introduction of so many actors all with their own agendas do to establish or increase any sense of impending doom? Answer? Absolutely NOTHING. The film left me totally emotionally unmoved except for the frustration of being duped by false advertising.