PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical*
Despite a title connoting action, TIME RUNNER is one of the dullest adventure-flicks I've ever encountered. It even beats out the previous record-holder, TERMINATION MAN.
I'm sure the three writers are mostly responsible for this state of affairs, churning out a tired, predictable script about future-warrior Michael Raynor (Mark Hammill), traveling back to his own birth-year to prevent an alien invasion in his year of 2022. He goes on the run from Earth-authorities, trying to prevent the invasion (I think) by rooting out alien spies who were hanging around the US in 1992. In fact, one such spy is a major US senator (Brion James), whose last name happens to be "alien" spelled backwards.
There's some rigamarole about how the aliens want to eliminate Raynor by finding him when his younger self is still in his mother's womb awaiting birth. But why bother? Raynor has a few fighting-and-shooting scenes, but he doesn't have any master plan by which he can permanently foil the invaders. It looks like the ETs and their human pawns could just end the hero's existence by getting a good shot at him.
Brion James at least gets to chew some scenery, while poor Rae Dawn Chong has another nothing support role. Director Michael Mazo brings no gusto whatever to any of the action scenes, but a few years earlier he'd helmed both of the looney Canuck EMPIRE OF ASH flicks, and a couple of years later, he directed a competent if unexceptional "Die Hard" rip called CRACKERJACK. So maybe he made a lackluster movie because there was nothing he could do with a waste-of-time script.
The best thing connected to this movie was a pithy review-comment by Michael "PSYCHOTRONIC" Weldon, where he said succinctly, "Mark Hamill! Fire your agent!"
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