MovieChat Forums > Time Lapse (2015) Discussion > Worst 'time travel' movie ever?

Worst 'time travel' movie ever?

posted 9 years ago by Ozzer240001
28 replies | jump to latest

I watched this really expecting to enjoy it as I love the genre and had been told it was worth watching. Two hours later and I'm pretty sure my friend was talking about another movie....

Others have said the acting is bad, but I'm not too bothered with that....

What bothered me was how seemingly reasonably intelligent people - going by the way they spoke English - oddly the movie might actually work if they were made out to be hopeless simpletons, but they're not, they're 'college' types - could make such utterly mind-numbingly stupid decisions!!!!

How a writer with a budget to make a movie like this, and presumably an interest in time travel movies, could make something so frustratingly stupid is beyond me. It really is aimed at people with an IQ of about 70!!! If you are any more intelligent it will pain you to watch it.

To list just some of the problems....

1) The kids discover they can 'see into the future', and thus see the results of sports events. Hence they can bet on them and win huge amounts of money, and quit their day jobs... so far so good. Until the moron putting the bets on clearly puts huge bets on with a single bookmaker, and wins constantly, leading his bookmaker to come round to the house and.... okay I won't spoil it but argghhhhh. Let's just say they just need one Lotto win and they're done - instead they manage to screw it all up by messing around with dog racing, and a clearly ridiculous betting pattern....

10 minutes of careful thought about the best way to 'hide' a few winning bets across states and perhaps events - and the whole bookmaker issue is unnecessary...

2) So after the ludicrous cockup above - they then do things like leaving the storage room where they are storing dead bodies wide open, totally forgetting to shut the door (Finn, towards the end).... is their ANY explanation for why he did this??

3) They proceed to believe the pictures are telling a fixed future and that unless replicated *perfectly* will result in death. Even after the man they thought died this way was shown to have died by accident.... on hearing this they really can experiment with trying to change the future

4) The girl manipulates the pictures to get back at her absent minded boyfriend, which results in the death of him and their best friend... and her likely lengthy jail sentence...... for what?? so he could appreciate her more??? It literally makes ZERO sense!!!

5) Finally - Jasper goes on a drugs binge when with the smallest amount of common sense he and his friends can earn enough money to give them any life they could possibly want - why??? why not wait a few months to do all that....

I could go on - but I won't - basically the movie isn't abysmal - I mean the topic itself interested me, and I was curious to see if there was going to be a twist (there was, but sadly it made little sense).

For fans of time travel movies it's a must watch, but probably only to see how *not* to make a time travel movie.

Okay I've just realised this is more of a review than a post! So I'll finish with my question - is there a worse 'time travel' movie out there?

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] Zero_Wolf 9 years ago

hey could have just won the Powerball once and split it three ways and be set for life.

Pro-tip, if, you know, you ever actually found a camera that took pictures of the future: all three of you buy your own lottery ticket with 5 sets of numbers, 4 random ones, and then the winning set. Come up with some stupid significance that all the winning numbers have for all 3 of you, in case you have to do a TV interview.

This way, if there is another winning ticket (or multiple other winning tickets) out there in the world each of you will get your own share, not split your 1 share between the three of you. (let's say

The other option is all three of you play separate lotteries, spread out over time, but that's a little bit more likely to arouse suspicion.

____________________________
Death is the road to awe.

[–] Michael_Henchard 8 years ago

Sorry, can you explain this again? Do you mean all three of you buy one ticket together? Don't many people do this already, with work syndicates and the like. You all sign the ticket on the back? This happens in my country anyway, not sure about American lottery rules.

This way, if there is another winning ticket (or multiple other winning tickets) out there in the world each of you will get your own share, not split your 1 share between the three of you.

What do you mean by this? If the jackpot is 90 million and there are three winners around the country, your joint ticket and two others, won't your share between the three be $30m or $10m each anyway? I'm not sure how American lotteries work, don't they just split the jackpot?

[–] Zero_Wolf 8 years ago

You know what's crazy? For no reason, five minutes before seeing the email notifying me of your reply, I was randomly thinking about how stupid this movie is.

Anyway, to your question, I will provide two scenarios.

A

The lottery is for $600 million. You and your 2 friends buy a single winning ticket. Lottery day comes and it turns out some random other person just happened to also have a winning ticket. Two winning tickets means the money is split two ways; random other person gets $300 million, and you and your friends get the other $300 million which you split among yourselves, $100 million each.

B

The lottery is for $600 million. You and your 2 friends EACH buy your own winning ticket. Lottery day comes and it turns out some random person just happened to also have a winning ticket. Now there are FOUR winning tickets, so the money is split four ways with you and each of your friends getting $150 million each.

In scenario B, instead of the lucky random stranger getting half the money, he only gets a quarter. Also, you don't have to worry about your friends screwing you over since you are all clearly and legally entitled to your own share.

____________________________
Death is the road to awe.

[–] Torrible_2013 8 years ago

Not to mention buying dozens of bogus tickets to throw off any suspicion.

[–] kukumav 9 years ago

Agree wirh everything you say, couldn't believe how stupid this was. Way to go girl, what a way to save your relationship ! Keep *beep* your bf's buddy just because....

[–] mitzibishi (1874) 4 years ago

The relationship wasn't even worth saving.

Anyway, what relationship, I didn't see one.

[–] view_and_review 9 years ago

I 100% agree with your list, it kinda dampened the movie a bit. Common sense approach woulda made the movie so much better.

I have to add my peeves.

6.) why do the immoral and unethical always win the argument? Let's leave the dead guy in the storage... Really? At least do the lotto then call the police!

7.) who has sex in front of a big open panoramic
Window?

8.) Who has sex in front of their sleeping BF????

9.) Did they not notice the HUGE camera lens in the window across the street?

[–] flambard 9 years ago

OP, I disagree strongly.

If you're doing a fixed timeline movie, you have only 2 choices:

a) Characters DO attempt to change the future, but due to some unforeseen consequences they end up doing exactly what they tried to avoid. Now, the more persistent they are, the more ridiculous the amount of coincidences must happen for the prophecy to fulfill itself. There was an episode of Crime Traveler, that attempted that and that came off rather wrong (basically: it was like the universe was conspiring against the protagonist).

b) Characters DO NOT attempt to change the future (and/or are actively trying to fulfill the prophecy to the point of staging the same events) due to some character flaws or gaps in their reasoning. Depending on the writing, it might come off as well, but it's certainly less jarring (it's easier to believe some people are just stupid).

In this particular movie (which I think was brilliant), the point was that the girl was f-cking crazy. We were afraid of Jasper for the whole time, and that was the twist, she manipulated him as well. Movies in general are not about time machines or dinosaurs, but about humans and their relationships with each other, and how they react to this or that premise. They explored the avenues rather well. For example, the sports betting could've been the lottery or stock market, it didn't matter. They just wanted to show greed and the downward spiral it sucks you into. Same with the girl. Crazy girls + time machines = trouble.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] Grandizer74 9 years ago

1. That's part of the point of the movie. Jasper is a druggie and an idiot. I also thought it was dumb to keep winning so often and to keep betting with the same bookie. But that's what idiot druggies do.

2. At that point Finn doesn't care and wants to get away and save himself and his girlfriend.

3. Finn said they didn't have to go by what the pictures said. Jasper thought they did because, as mentioned, he's an idiot drug user, and he's become mentally unhinged by the pressure of the situation and having killed people.

4. She explained it. She was in love with Finn and thought he was slipping away from her. I've known both men and women who wrap themselves up in their relationship whereby it becomes the most important thing in their life. I had no trouble believing she would do that.

5. Were Jasper smart he wouldn't use drugs to begin with.

[–] Grandizer74 9 years ago

Sorry, I forgot the other part of your question. Off the top of my head, Timeline was a lot worse than this.

[–] jedi-jesse 9 years ago

1) I definitely never thought of Jasper as intelligent. "I see sea shells....Crabapple! Crabs live in the ocean, right? I'm putting all of my money on Crabapple...it's a sure thing!" (Paraphrased, but you get the point.)

2) He left the storage room open, because he didn't care...he was planning on running off with Callie, and he was setting up Jasper to get caught (that's why Joe the cop showed up.)

3) Jasper clearly said that he didn't care what the Dr. said, he didn't want to mess with the future, and at that point he was the one in control of the situation. (Waving a gun around, locking up Finn) Again, I see no valid argument that he's intelligent.

4) She thought that she would be able to change the past. She was going to leave the note about not getting caught, find it the night before, and never have the confrontation and never have to kill him.

5) Jasper is a moron. He likes drugs.