Time travel gets yet another script treatment in the recent DVD release Timeline. Based on a novel by Michael Crichton and helmed by Richard Donner (the masterful director responsible for bringing the indomitable team of Riggs and Murtaugh to life on the big screen), Timeline is a blockbuster action flick that is big on style but lacking in substance. It is a film that is pleasing aesthetically with plenty of eye-popping stunts and an epic final battle reminiscent of Braveheart or even Lord Of The Rings (though not as well done as either), but is a big disappointment intellectually.

       The premise of the film is fairly simple: When a history professor becomes trapped in 1357 France (having been transported there through a worm hole accidentally discovered by the corporation funding his archeological dig), it is up to his son and several of his students to rescue him. Unfortunately, our band of intrepid heroes arrives at the height of conflict between the French and English and must outwit, outplay, and outlast their enemies if they hope to return to the modern world.

       What I found most frustrating about this film is the lack of characterization. Donner moves the action along at such a brisk pace, we never have time to develop a relationship with the characters and, therefore, we're never fully invested emotionally in their survival. We never fully understand what makes these people tick, why they are motivated to do what they do, or what their connections are to one another beyond the current situation. Disturbing, too, are the secondary story lines that appear to have been thrown in for dramatic effect but are never fully fleshed out. There are a pair of romances that are given nothing more than a cursory explanation and one of them seems nothing more than a device to move the plot along.

       There are also some mighty big holes in the plot – a symptom, apparently, of attempting to adapt Crichton's work into something manageable for production. There is a rather telling example of this in the making-of featurette as we listen to Donner reveal that Crichton needed 100 pages to explain the worm hole discovery but the script explains it in two. You expect to suspend a certain amount of belief with a film of this type, but Timeline feels so convoluted and unrealistic at times it borders on silly.

       The acting performances are so secondary to the action it wouldn't even be fair to critique them. A fine ensemble cast, including Billy Connolly, Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Anna Friel, and Gerard Butler, is all but wasted, playing second fiddle to explosions and sword fights. That I cannot recall a single stand-out performance amongst them will give you a pretty fair indication of how closely they come to being nothing more than set-dressing.

       Timeline is presented on DVD in 1.85:1 widescreen in Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround or 2.0 Stereo. Bonus features include a fine 3-part documentary entitled 'Journey Through Timeline' interesting more for the insights it offers into Richard Donner's personality than its insights into the film making, a featurette entitled 'Textures of Timeline' a rather droll look at the various elements of production such as costuming, props, location scouting, and such, two versions of the theatrical trailer, and sundry previews.

Timeline was a box office bomb and it's not hard to see why. It will probably have a decent second-life on DVD, especially with those who are all about the action and care little for character development.