Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

What do you get if you take Shaun Of The Dead, subtract the zombies and add time travel? Sadly, not Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel.

First-time screenwriter Jamie Mathieson’s story of three mates who find a hole in time in the gents’ toilet of their local fails to live up to its obvious model. The script has a few good ideas regarding the titular questions – does the ‘Best Before’ date on a packet of crisps really matter? – but the dialogue isn’t funny enough to sustain the many scenes that consist of three blokes sitting in a pub talking, albeit in different time periods.

Referencing Firefly and Doctor Who might be shooting fish in a barrel when it comes to the geek audience – the Shaun of the Dead/Spaced model again – but it’s also shooting yourself in the foot if your film isn’t as good as the shows you refer to.

Meanwhile, debut feature director Gareth Carrivick would have done better to limit himself to in-camera techniques for suggesting time travel rather than relying on special effects to which his budget won’t stretch. Cash constraints also mean that the charismatic Chris O’Dowd (the shabby dude from The IT Crowd) is left without actors of equal status to play off, settling instead for the surprisingly charming Anna Faris, who pops up every now and then as an inept time cop.

Alexander Pashby

Anticipation:

What questions and how frequently?

Enjoyment:

How hard would it be to build a time machine to go back and work on the script?

In Retrospect:

If it ceased to exist, would it really be so bad?