The Gerard Butler Time Travel Sci-Fi Blockbuster Being Forgotten
Gerard Butler has been in many great movies, including Gamer, 300, and Greenland. However, sometimes not even good actors can save a movie, which seems to be the case with his film featuring 14th century France and time travel, Timeline.
The Cast
Timeline is a movie based on Michael Crichton’s (Jurrasic Park) book of the same name. After Professor Edward Johnston (Billy Connolly) goes missing, a group of archaeologists ends up traveling back to France in the 14th century to try and save him before a deadly historical event occurs.
The team consists of Kate Erickson (Frances O’Connor), Andre Marek (Gerard Butler), Josh Stern (Ethan Embry), Francois Dontelle (Rossif Sutherland), and the professor’s son Chris Johnston (Paul Walker). They find a note from the professor dating back hundreds of years and decide to work with a group with experience in time travel known as ITC Corporation.
A Trip To The Past
The company ends up being corrupt and sends the team into the past to cover up some of their activities. Now, the group must try to survive and see if they can make it back home with the professor in one piece.
The above names aren’t the only famous actors found in the movie. Michael Sheen (Good Omens), Neal McDonough (Arrow), Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies), David Thewlis (The Sandman), and Marton Csokas (The Equalizer) also play notable roles throughout Timeline.
Largely Faithful To The Book
Overall, the Timeline movie follows the book. Like with many movies, however, several details were added, such as the professor having a son, and the process of sending people back into the past. The changes weren’t big but seemed to be different enough to make the film flop, though it also isn’t the best book ever, with a 3.9 out of 5 on Goodreads.
It’s also not surprising Timeline failed. Michael Crichton seemed to have some bad luck with his books being adapted into movies. While Jurrasic Park was a hit and the franchise still goes to this day, The Terminal Man, Sphere, Congo, and Disclosure didn’t fare so well.
Critically Panned
Part of the reason that Timeline is hard to find could be because it wasn’t a very highly rated movie. While fans gave it a lukewarm average score of 45 percent, critics found the movie altogether unlikable with an average score of 13 percent.
It isn’t that Timeline aged poorly. Instead, it was bad right from the start, having been considered a commercial failure with a loss of over $49 million according to Newsweek. This was a surprisingly bad movie considering Richard Donner was the director.
Stream It Now
Richard Donner, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 91, was known for some pretty great movies. For example, Maverick, Lethal Weapon, The Goonies, The Omen, Superman (1978), and Scrooged were also from Donner. But Timeline didn’t live up to the hype of many of his other movies and is now set to fade into obscurity.
Timeline isn’t included in the base price of any streaming service, making it rather hard for many to find and watch the film. However, it’s not completely gone. There are still some places you can rent or buy the movie online if you really want to give it a watch, including AppleTV, Google Play, and YouTube.
