Jan 23 2009
Journey to the Center of Time (Review)
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME (1967)
Starring Scott Brady (Gremlins)
It’s amazing how these old science fiction movies can have such awesome titles. Just thinking about the title Journey to the Center of Time made me think of all kinds of possibilities like a cinematic special effects creation of the beginning of the universe. Regardless of the theory present, it would’ve been interesting to watch. Sadly, this movie only time travels to the future, the prehistoric past, and back to the present. However, it also presents some interesting (if not bizarre and sometimes boring) theories of time and space.
The movie follows three scientists, Mark, Karen and, Gordon, working on a time-travelling ship. Gordon, in particular, is sporting the dapper Henry Kissinger look. They do show the outer structure of the ship in miniature form, but most of the movie takes place inside the ship which is just an orange sphere with lots of machines and signs indicating what the machines are. Think of it as a very low-budget Star Trek. So a grumpy company owner, Stanton, questions the project taking so much of his money. After a boring lecture on time and space and threatening to shut them down, Stanton gets in the machine with the scientists and they take it for a test drive. Mark gets cocky and ends up sending them into the future.
The future is filled with blue aliens who are being attacked by humans in an atomic war. After learning a lesson about man’s folly, everyone gets back in the ship and tries to travel back. But, wait, something is in their way! Stanton destroys it though with his great knowledge of firing laser weapons at full blast. That something comes back to bite him in the butt later. The laser blast they fired from the ship caused them to travel too fast. So they don’t end up traveling to the present, but rather cycling through a whole bunch of stock footage until they reach the prehistoric era, 1 million BC. Stanton goes venturing around because he is stupid and the crew has to look for him. Karen spots a giant iguana, discharges the laser, and ends up breaking their ruby used for time travel. They discover emeralds in a cave and realize they can fix their ship if they can find a ruby. While they search, Stanton, being the greedy man he is, takes on the secondary role as the man who can’t let a diamond go. There is always one. However, his ignorance caused the cavern to collapse and ends up killing Gordon (via falling into hot lava).
Stanton gets in the ship before anyone else and starts time travelling back when, wait, something is coming right at him. Wait, it’s the same ship! Stanton kills himself through paradox! So now that same time traveling ship travels to the same prehistoric location, giving Mark and Karen a chance to travel to the present except everything is happening a couple of minutes prior in slow-motion for some reason and-AAAHHHHH! My head hurts! No! Now the movie is replaying itself in recap form! The ending makes no sense! Make it stop!
DVD Dump Counter:
-5 instances of time travel.
-1 time traveling collision.
-1 culture of blue aliens in the future.
-1 stock footage montage.
-1 giant iguana.
-1 scientist burned to death by lava.
-1 greedy idiot killed by paradox.
-1 lengthy recap at the ending.
RATING: C-Movie
And I’m being generous here. The special effects are okay for their time and the Star Trek atmosphere I can kind of dig. But after watching The Time Machine, Back to the Future and a whole bunch of Twilight Zone episodes, I’m a little more educated on time travel to believe the confusing elements being thrown at me in this movie. Its fun for some goofy science fiction nonsense, but don’t try to understand the logistics of what their talking about in this film or you’ll blow your brains out three days later.
