The Eloi this time around are not all blonde and lifeless. Even the "talking rings" in the original are sort of brought back, though this time in the form of a holographic New York City public library computer (Orlando Jones), whom Alex first encounters in 2030 and again later in the film, set nearly 800,000 years later. Philby, the spider making a web at the top of Alex's greenhouse, the constantly-changing store window mannequin that appears in the building across from Alex's house, the stop at one point in the future to discover that a disastrous incident is occuring (nuclear war in the original, the moonrock shower in this version), and the entrance to the Morlock's underground lair. I also liked how they kept a lot of elements from the original: good friend Mr. A truely awe-inspiring moment that is one of ILM's finest effects sequences. It's a terrific sequence in which we see the geological evolution of the area in a matter of moments, from cliffside rock formations taking shape to environmental changes and everything in between. The second is when Alexander is knocked unconscious by an explosion tremor in the distant future, when explosives mining on the moon have knocked it from its orbit and have caused it to come apart, showering the Earth with moonrocks, and the time machine speeds forward into the very distant future. Guy Pearce is well-cast as the slightly-nerdy mathmetician, Alexander Hartdegen, and the special effects were very well-done (some were shown unfinished in the trailer and in the TV spots, so don't let that deter you.) Two of the best sequences are the two forward-traveling sequences, the first when Pearce begins his journey into the future, with the change from Victorian era to the future flashing by before us during a terrific pull back from the time machine all the way out of Earth's orbit and around to the far side of the moon, where a ship is coming in for a landing on a colony. It's a tad slow at first, but since it's only a short 96 minutes, things get going pretty quick. But the surprising box office performance in the week following its release seems to now suggest otherwise. Judging from the initial reaction to THE TIME MACHINE, it seemed official to me that people have forgotten how to have a good time at the theaters these days.
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