Time After Time (1979)

Finally Bought It
This is one of my favorite movies (time travel has always fascinated me). This one has several twists with both H.G. Wells and Jack The Ripper being joined in the same movie. Add in a young, very innocent appearing Mary Steinbergen and you have a very enjoyable film.

DVD
Interesting plot, pretty good movie. This was the first thing I have ordered from Amazon that was defective. I had no problem returning it for replacement. Very happy with Amazon and the DVD.

Sorry, No Cindy Lauper On The Soundtrack
A long forgotten classic that deserves to be rediscovered. This is one you were likely to catch on HBO back in the day, but few people know of this film anymore. Tis a shame coz it's a very fun movie. H.G. Wells invents a time machine in the late 1800s and has to pursue Jack the Ripper who has escaped to the future, the future being 1979 in this case. Jack continues with his old antics while Wells tries to capture him and also tries to adjust to the 20th century(which wasn't at all what he thought it was going to be to his disappointment) and falls in love with Mary Steenburgen along the way. The movie's a bit hard to classify. Considering the premise, it's easy to just write it off as sci-fi, but that's not entirely true. The movie does become a love story a little ways in, but don't let that discourage all you manly men out there, because it actually works. The comedy, which consists of many fish-out-of-water moments with McDowell(Warner seems to adjust a little better and without much humor) discovering new things like electric toothbrushes and a McDonald's restaurant(which he refers to as "that Scottish restaurant I ate breakfast at"), are funny, cute and effective. Though Jack the Ripper is the movie's villain, this isn't a Jack the Ripper movie, if you catch my drift. There are no insights to Jack or his motivations; He's simply there, and he's a threat and he's a mean mother. Underrated character actor David Warner does a great job with the role. Mary Steenburgen is a real cutie. She'll never be considered a Hollywood sex kitten, but I've always found her to be a very attractive lady and a believable choice for Wells' character to fall for(and Dr. Emmett Brown for that matter!). That leaves Malcolm McDowell. A very fine performance from a guy who we're used to seeing play villains and psychos. Here he convincingly manages to be heroic, awkward, clumsy, and romantic. Hard to imagine he played Caligula the same year! The actual time travel sequence,one scene in a dance club, and a few minor odds and ends might have modern viewers chuckling, but other than that, this movie doesn't come across as dated as some have said or some may expect. It really holds up well. My only gripe about the film, and it's the same gripe I have about a couple of stories that deal with time travel, is that McDowell gets into the time machine in London and gets out in San Francisco. Now, I'm no expert on time travel, but the idea is that you move through time, but not physically from the position where you left, right? To me, that was a little hard to buy, I would have preferred that it had taken place in London in 1979, that would have made more sense. Not only that, but if you're familiar with the H.G. Wells book, The Time Machine, that's the whole point! The character never moves from the spot in his lab where the time machine sits, it's everything around him that changes as time changes. Oh well, it's a minor gripe, but it's still a great movie. See it before Rob Zombie decides to remake it.