Never tiring of grabbing references from a range of sci-fi classics, if Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox has anything, it’s energy. Not just from the uranium half-inched from terrorists to build a time travel gateway, either.
The vision of writer, director and indie-veteran Stimson Snead, Time Traveler’s Paradox is here to blind us with rapid-fire gags, gratuitous swearing and blood splattering, and a pile up of juvenile jokes and existential sci-fi. When, at one point, fire rips through the pipes and valves running through Travers’ Advanced Particle Solutions industrial complex, the audience’s hive mind may well feel the same. As a feat of ambitious comedy filmmaking determined to chuck physics at the wall, it’s an onslaught, but the depths of its comedy could also leave you squirming.
Tim Travers (Samuel Dunning) has the secret of time travel, but he also has questions… Questions about the time. If he can step back one minute in time, kill his younger self, and survive, it’s surely a paradox that can sustain him teaming up with himself from different points in time to uncover the nature of his predicament. The thing is, being the same person doesn’t mean all Tim Travers will think the same way, and as he heads towards a manifest destiny with infinity and the meaning of life, via the bar, he may be surprised by who he becomes.
Dunning takes on the impressive feat of playing Travers. Acting opposite multiple versions of himself in many scenes, developing different personalities and swaying through states of drunkenness, it’s a considerable achievement. Travers, as you might expect, is a cynical, self-absorbed scientist, which unlocks plenty of comic potential, but also risks being a bit one-note. Good thing, then, that it’s built into the plot that an hour can change a man.
Typically, some of the least explored bits are the best. Snead himself plays an assassin trying to kill Travers, only to continually bump into his target after blowing his head off, and could have taken more screen time. Danny Trejo’s cameo as tough guy Royce is solid, but the payoff to a long build-up is him sauntering off for a spot of bar-redemption when he, maybe, meets God.
Brash as it is, the tone of The Time Traveler’s Paradox is impressively consistent. Snead knows how to sell the threat and mystery of time through effects and camera work, while the cast pretty much nails the timing needed for his blistering script, helped by a finely tuned edit from J.D. McKee. That said, a time-travelling romp is a difficult thing to give form to. The podcast interview that peppers the first half seems to have little relevance beyond introducing Travers to some romance (Felicia Day) and injecting satire and exposition. As the action leaps between various Travers as the story rolls on, it’s clear that a strong narrative is really an affront to paradox.
Come the finale, a welcome celestial appearance by Keith David (The Thing) and some good gags about self-publishing, it feels like everything and nothing has happened. Top marks for that paradox, but it doesn’t quite avoid a distinct aftertaste of, much like its central character, being a bit too self-absorbed.
Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox is at the cocksure end of time travel. It’s likely a bit hectic for casual movie viewers, too aimless for general sci-fi fans, and lacking in the sophistication or self-control required to hold the attention of fans of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the key reference point for the vast majority of its target audience).
So, if you’re after a wry chat and a cup of tea with Arthur Dent, best not look here. If you fancy an uncompromising assault on the senses, something like Zaphod Beeblebrox’s take on life, the universe and everything, it could make your evening.
Tim Travers & the Time Traveler’s Paradox is on UK digital from GrimmVision now.
