The Time Traveller's Wife - Cinema Review

'The Time Traveller's Wife has been a box office success because of the amount of fans the book has and the significant lack of date movies doing the rounds at the moment (Inglorious Basterds for a first date anyone? Thought not.)'

I can't claim it was my personal decision to spend my Wednesday night of last week watching The Time Traveller's Wife. However, the assumption (or should that be accusation?) by The Missus that we normally watch whatever I fancy is probably correct and will be backed up by District 9 and others in a few weeks time. Reluctantly therefore, I ambled down to the cinema, unfortunately arriving just in time to catch the start.

In all honesty, I had higher hopes than normal for a film of TTTW's ilk. The book is held in high regard for a start. The 'padding' around the central romance has it's grounding in science-fiction which isn't a bad effort and Eric Bana and Rachel McAdam's are both decent actors who are normally well worth watching. Ah, this might not be so bad after all hey?

And it wasn't. If it had of been bad it would of been pretty easy to criticise it and attempt to pick it apart. Instead it was absolutely, horrifically and almost offensively bland. The time travel was practically a none event and rarely did Bana's Henry find himself in extraordinary or threatening situations. The comic relief, largely provided by Ron Livingston, was intermittent at best, absent at worst and the live of The Time Traveller's Wife, which, you would be forgiven for thinking, should be the focus of the film, was at best, a 50/50 split with the Time Traveller and largely held back from the audience.

Around an hour into the film I glanced at my watch (never a good sign) and thought, 'where the hell is this film going?' Almost an hour in there is no clue as to what the central conceit (other than the general love-in and time travelling) is. Then, forty-five or so minutes before the end the 'significant event' is introduced and then, forty-five minutes later, the credits role. Put me (or any other person who doesn't want to sit through sixty minutes of nothing) in an editing booth with this film and I could cut a fair potion of it, turn it into a feature length TV adaptation and make a tonne on the advertising haul.

Which is what it should of been all along. TTTW has been a box office success because of the amount of fans the book has and the significant lack of date movies doing the rounds at the moment (Inglorious Basterds for a first date anyone? Thought not.) Other than the two leads, who really do pull the film up and are the only thing which maintains your attention for longer than 5 minutes, this is a 8.00pm, Sunday night television drama for your folks or The Missus to watch while you idle on the PC in the corner. Bland in the extreme. Make sure you're sitting comfortably and preferably, with a pillow at the ready.