It’s no secret that I am a lover of time travel movies. After dwindling down the choices from the many time travel flicks I’ve seen this month, the remaining contenders were Time Lapse and 11 a.m. So, the first: 11 a.m. because I like Korean (and non-US) speculative fiction.
The story is pretty basic. Our hero Woo-seok is leading a time travel research project called Trotsky -- so named because it concerns the past and alternate timelines and because Trotsky would’ve been the great Soviet leader instead of Stalin had if time had turned out differently. I need not tell you that Team Leader Woo-seok has a past he wants to change, do I? We pretty much know that all Mad Scientists have some horrible event that happened in the past from which their passion came. So, yes, this passion for time travel originated in the death of our hero’s beloved wife. Ah, if he could only go back in time and fix things.
But her death happened waaaaaaaay back when. And so far the Trotsky team have only been able to (theoretically) go back in time for 24 hours. Not a bad start! But apparently not good enough for the Russians who have been backing this project and who now are on the verge of shutting it down.
Disappointed but valiant --and (as I’ve already stated) led by a somewhat obsessed Team Leader, our scientists decide to try to send Trotsky into the future. “For real, this time.” No more theories or transporting non-humans into the future. Woo-seok and Young-eun are sent a day ahead. At exactly 11: a.m. But when they arrive there, they find much amiss. The station’s ablaze, some crazy guy is attempting to murder Woo-seok folks have died, the CCTV tapes are scrambled and the walls are crumbling. Dear me! What do these things mean? How did matters come to this pass? Have the Russians been doing shady things? Or has knowing the future caused this bad future to happen?
This is a fun flick. It’s fast-paced and it comes together well. I didn’t find any plot holes -- which is what one looks for in time travel flicks-- but it’s possible I was so caught up in the story I missed them. This film is streaming on the web.
Time Lapse 104 minutes USA 2014 Written by Bradley D King and BP Cooper. Veritas Production
Time Lapse is not exactly a time travel pic. It’s more of a fortune-telling advanced infomation pic. And it turns out to be the perfect complement to our Korean time travel piece, 11 a.m. We have three best buds -- consisting of Callie, Finn, and Jasper. Finn and Callie are dating and Jasper is well, hovering around them as best friends who are in love with their friend’s girl often do.
A neighbor goes missing. In their search for him, they discover a camera that takes pictures of coming events. Exactly 24 hours in the future. Dear me! What a difference a day makes! Well, for one, it can make a difference between winning a lot of money on gambling and winning a little. It can prevent -- or cause?-- murders. And if one or two of the main characters are obsessed with greed or lust or passion, well, who knows what will happen?
The funny thing about the course of events is that yet again knowing the future creates the future. In 11 a.m., the characters try to fight against what seems inevitable. In Time Lapse, the hipster ever-so-sure-of-themselves friends believe that since a future scene appears in a photograph, they are obligated to recreate what they see in the picture. But like the scrambled CCTV tapes in 11 a.m., these folks are working with incomplete information. I definitely recommend this movie. This film is available on DVD and is streaming online and on Netflix.
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