Time travel has long been a fascination of mankind. Dating back as far or even further than H.G. Wells epic tale “The Time Machine”, man has wanted to find ways to travel back to fix the mistakes of history. As such, Hollywood has been our main vessel to explore the possibilities of time travel. Unfortunately, man has also made movies about time travel that no time machine can undo. Here are 9 of the worst.
Black Knight
Jamal, a low-level worker at a shabby amusement park with a medieval theme, finds himself sent back to the year 1328 after he falls in the moat. Before he realizes what has happened, he finds himself mistaken for a messenger from Normandy, enlisted in a plot to kill the tyrant king, and preparing to open a chain of fast-food restaurants, not to mention falling in love with the leader of the assassination plan.
Martin Lawrence in a bad remake of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court? Really??? No. Besides the obligatory “Old English people are CRAAAAZY”, there’s plenty of slapstick, poor attempts at courtship, and bad, bad attempts at transforming a slacker into a hero. We’ve seen it done before, and we’ve seen it done far better.
Freejack
Auto racer Alex Furlong is snatched by time travel, a split second before a fatal explosion, by Vasendak’s 21st-century team of techies, who plan to sell his healthy body to an ailing rich man at McCandless Corporation, for a mind transfer. He escapes, but has no rights in this nightmare future of violence and sleaze. The story concerns his survival, and his attempt to revive his relationship with his fianceé Julie, now 15 years older and an executive at McCandless.
Two words: Mick Jagger. For some god forsaken reason, Mick Jagger was in this movie…and not as himself. Also, the world of 2009 was not even remotely accurate, and it wasn’t made all that long ago…A ridiculous plot coupled with ridiculous acting and Mick Jagger as someone other than Mick Jagger make this one for the bargain bin.
Hercules In New York
The divine Hercules is bored by his life on mount Olympus and asks father Zeus for a vacation on Earth. His request is denied, but by an accident with one of Zeus’ lightning bolts he’s thrown into New York. His inexperience with civilization and his arrogance lead into problems – until a college professor’s daughter helps him to acclimatize. He starts to like living on earth and wants to stay for longer, even when father Zeus sends Nemesis to punish him.
OK, I know I’m gonna get crucified by the die hard Ahnold fans, but come on. Yes, the movie launched his career, and YES, Ah-nuld will always be a legend, but seriously, this is one of the most ridiculous time travel/Greek god movies of ALL TIME. Inane dialogue, plus Arrr-nuuhld’s dubbed voice make this one for the history books.
Millenium
When Bill Smith (Kris Kristofferson), an airline crash investigator, is called in to investigate a crash in 1989, he begins to suspect that time travellers may have caused the crash. In reality the team of time travellers from the future, lead by Louise Baltimore (Cheryl Ladd) are rescuing passengers of doomed airline collisions in the past.
So much is wrong with this movie I don’t even know where to start. The premise actually isn’t bad, but the execution makes me want to execute the director. Wooden acting by Kris “Whistler” Kristofferson and a movie full of so many plot holes it resembles Swiss cheese make me want to drop an airplane on it. Stick to Blade movies and country music, Kris.
Planet Of The Apes (2001)
Astronaut Leo Davidson (Mark Whalberg) finds himself stranded on a planet where Apes have evolved to be the predominant species and humans are kept as pets and slaves. Davidson’s attempt to find a way home pits him against the powerful General Thade (Tim Roth) and his army of apes lead by Colonel Attar (Michael Duncan Clark).
Marky Mark is the savior of humanity? Don’t get me wrong, he has his moments – so long as he doesn’t take himself seriously, like in The Big Hit – but really? Marky Mark’s an ASTRONAUT?!? He seems to have more in common with the apes in this movie than the humans. And, moreover, Tim Burton’s “twist” at the end is so incredibly asinine that it makes me want to throw my feces at him.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY????????? I’m a Trekkie. Honest I am. But this piece of whale blubber was so incredibly ridiculous that they should be embarrassed they made it. I mean, really, you expect me to believe that they didn’t record ANY humpback whale voices/sounds before they became extinct? And worse still, for ALL their technology, you expect me to believe that they couldn’t synthesize a computerized response that didn’t require them to return to 1980s earth and interact with the weirdos there? Like, gag me with a Dilithium crystal.
The Kid
On the verge of his 40th birthday Russ Durtiz (Bruce Willis), a personal image consultant with an attitude, is confronted by a mysterious 8 years old boy Rusty who turns out to be his younger self. Brought together through some mysterious time warp the duo try to get the young Rusty back to his own time, while elder Russ is forced to come to terms with memories of his childhood.
Bruce Willis needs to stop trying to be lovable in ANY capacity. Stick to what you do best, Bruce, kicking ass and takin’ names. Don’t hang out with 10 year old kids, trying to find your inner child…nobody wants or needs to see that. Go blow some shit up!! Yippee ki yay, mother –
The Time Traveler’s Wife
A Chicago librarian suffers from a rare genetic disorder that sends him hurtling through time whenever he is under extreme duress; despite the fact that he vanishes at inordinately frequent and lengthy intervals, he attempts to build a stable future with the beautiful young heiress he loves.
Time travel + romantic drama = steaming pile. I mean, really? Trying to to marry those two genres is like trying to mate a Yorkshire Terrier with a Gila Monster. It’s just gonna end badly. The premise, that the librarian has a genetic disorder that makes him time travel, actually could be kind of cool in ANY OTHER KIND OF MOVIE. But no. Take a cool idea, and then screw it all up with a sappy love story that has nothing interesting about it. It’s like someone tried to sucker guys into seeing a romantic movie. “Look guys, time travel! You guys like that stuff right?” Shoot me.
Timecop
The perfection of time travel brings with it new opportunities for criminals. The government sets up a special police force (T.E.C.) to ensure the new technology isn’t abused. Max Walker, one of these timecops learns of a corrupt politician’s plot to become president using the device. Senator McComb discovers Walker on his trail and the real action begins–in Walker’s own past!
Like the aforementioned entry featuring Ah-nuld, Jean Claude Van Damme will forever kick ass in our memories, but this movie was like the beginning of the end for him. So much inane dialogue and stupid plot points couldn’t be covered by any amount of ass-kickery. Sorry, guys, but this one sucked too.
The One
Jet Li is police officer Gabriel Yulaw who is confronted by a sinister doppelganger from a parallel universe intent on killing all other versions of himself. Gabriel’s evil twin from another world grows stronger with each version of himself that he kills and Gabriel is the final one.
Technically this isn’t a time travel movie, it’s more of an alternate dimension-jumping kind of movie, but it bears mentioning because of how horrifically bad it was. Born the year after The Matrix, the creators of The One decided that it’d be a great idea to grab Jet Li and put him in a movie where he fights himself. OK, that actually isn’t all that bad of an idea. Even the premise, that one version of himself gains power by destroying the other versions is sort of interesting in an anime sort of way. All fine and dandy, then, until you get to the dialogue. I can sum it all up in one sentence, using my hands down, favorite line of the movie (and something I still randomly scream out for my own amusement):
“I AM YULAW! I AM NOBODY’S BITCH!!!”
‘Nuff said.
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Brock Landers
Chief
The point of going back to the 20th century in ST:IV wasn’t because of a lack of recordings, but a lack of understanding any of it. Spock could have played back a bunch of whale songs, but it’d be gibberish and would likely be the equivalent of an inappropriate “Yo Momma…” joke. Still, I didn’t care much for the way thew crew interacted with people, considering that they’d done it before.
The One was actually kind of good. Sure, not exactly Jet Li’s best work and the concept does get worn a bit thin, but he actually pulled it off.
And if your main complaint about the Planet Of The Apes remake is that it has Mark Wahlberg, I’m okay with that. I’m in the minority that seems to have liked it and it could have easily continued without any of the cheese that followed the original movie, although Escape From The Planet Of the Apes wasn’t that bad. Things could go terribly wrong with Rise Of The Apes.