Stimson Snead’s Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox is an extremely crazy science fiction comedy with some fresh ideas. Unfortunately the joke rarely ever lands, leaving the 110-minute run time feeling like a lifetime.
The film stars Samuel Dunning as Tim Travers, a scientist who builds a time machine which sends him back one minute. So when he steps through, he is greeted by himself. Panicking that this will create a paradox that destroys time he panics and shoots the other Tim. He then realizes nothing happens even when he tries to surprise himself so keeps traveling back in time and shooting the other Tim.
Being the smartest person he knows, Tim keeps the Tim’s around (upwards of seventeen), naming them after Greek letters to help solve this paradox (or lack thereof). Alpha Tim is original Tim, then there’s Beta, and Delta so on. The movie gets very technical very quickly as someone who always struggled with science just pretend you understand what they’re talking about and move on.
For reasons unknown Tim decides to go onto right wing talk show hosted by James Bunratty (played deliciously blowhard-y by Joel McHale). He taunts and makes fun of both James and his audience which delights his producer Delilah (Felicia Day) so much she agrees goes on a date with him. Alternating between screwing up the date and impressing her eventually leads them back to his abandoned factory laboratory where she realizes he’s not just another nutbag that guests on rightwing radio but the real deal.
From here we get lots of scenes of the Tims trying to problem solve but also getting distracted because they’re curious about being in a room full of themselves. Having more than one Tim in shot at once (often many shots) is seamless and their interactions work really well. The effects get a bit dodgy later in the film when someone starts exploding people and among other things.
Although the film appears to have a lot of technical jargon, it often feels like different characters talking at each other rather than with each other. Swearing well timed is funny, but the film seems to think constant swearing equals laughs. More than one occasion and by more than one character we get a deluge of F-bombs that just never lands.
Overall the movie feels like a zany concept that would’ve been an Abed Nadir student film project (from Community) down to Samuel Dunning performing like Jeff Winger at his most unhinged megalomaniac moments. Not lost since Joel McHale played Jeff on Community and with Keith David who starred in the final season as Elroy showing up in Tim Travers as The Simulator.
There is a charming story in which Gamma Tim and Omicron Tim fall in love, but first there’s a Tim orgy that is gross and hilarious. Sadly, those are pretty much the only two good things about the film. Delilah acts too irrationally hot-and-cold for any investment in her character choices to be made sincerely.
Stimson Snead, the director, also plays a hitman named Helter who has a bit where he keeps forgetting to read a message to Tim from his boss before killing him that was stale the first time around. Also, Helter maintains no kind of curiosity as to why he keeps having to kill this same man over and over again doesn’t make sense. Every time we cut away from the Tim group back to the inept hitman storyline it just sucks all of the little momentum that this film had going for it right out.
What the movie does have going for it is some pretty interesting ideas about trying to tackle the science in unbelievable science fiction, something that is either hand waved away or purposely not explored. Unfortunately, though, there are too many eye-rolling moments of poorly written and executed comedy throughout this thing that makes getting through it all kind of tough. A more interesting soft time travel experience would be one from Japan’s Junta Yamaguchi who made Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and river, for example.
Tim Travers and The Time Traveler’s Paradox played at SIFF 2024. Thank you K.O PR for providing us with a screener!
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