Somewhere In Time (1980)

Welcome to another review by me the Movie and TV Mistress.

I have a big fascination with Time Travel, I am a huge fan of the Back to the future films, I have watched many movies about time travel and there are some under appreciated ones out there like Time After Time which I also love, but today I'm reviewing a movie called Somewhere In Time.

This movie came to my attention when I wrote a story about travelling back in time and working on movies and well dating certain celebrities, it was a Mary Sue story. I found out that there was a movie already similar to this story so I never went back to mine. Today for the first time I watched this movie, it stars Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.

With in 3 minutes of the film starting an old lady, actually the old lady who hung herself in the movie House gives Christopher Reeve a fob watch and tells him to come back to her, his expression says it all that was just plain creepy.

So we know that Christopher is the playwright of the play the old lady watched and that he's called Richard, hmm I wonder is this Richard Matheson doing a Mary Sue.  Any way it just skips ahead 8 years, he leaves his apartment drives off to the Grand Hotel and checks into 313, I have to point out I have worked in hotels and they don't tend to have rooms numbered 13 as it is bad luck, but whatever this film is not gripping me, could be something to do with the lack of dialogue or the fact I don't care about Richard.

So he goes to his room and the bell man tells him he has been at the hotel since 1910 and tells Christopher about what he was like as a child, I guess we'll see that later. He looks at the fob watch, hmm does he just pull it out every 8 years or something, damn its that song again I hope this is not going to get annoying like the violin in Full Moon High. So he is walking around the hotel and sees some old pictures and artefacts then a picture of Jane Seymour and the music swells and he looks like he is in love. OK that is just stupid falling in love with a picture of a beautiful girl from 80 years ago or older, I know we have all had crushes on film stars at different times, but he seems to just become really obsessed with that picture and well like the song addicted to love he can't eat and he can't sleep.

Sometimes I think Christopher Reeve is a bit of an over actor he makes me just want to cringe even when I watch Superman, so he goes to the library to research Jane’s character Elise McKenner and finally he sees a picture of the old lady from the start and he seems happy, oh I’m starting to feel queezy about this film.

He goes to see a lady called Miss Roberts about Elise and lies at first saying he wants to write a play about Elise and then he says it's personal and shows the fob watch, it turns out the watch was missing from Elise the night she died. We get some character introductions Christopher Plumber her Manager William and Richard's philosophy teacher Mr Finny whose book she read over and over, which is called travel through time. He then see a music box shaped like the Grand Hotel and it plays that fecking Rachmaninoff song. Richard then says “I don't understand what is happening to me?” I would like to point out nothing is happening.

He goes to his old philosophy teacher Mr Finny and asks “Is time travel possible?” and he explains how time travel is possible in this film, no machine or delorean, no you just need a really really old hotel and you hypnotise your mind into thinking that it is the past. OK I understand that films are not fact and each time travel story has it's own mythos but this makes less sense then the Butterfly Effect.

OK I have to give the movie and Christopher's character marks for at least sorting out money, clothes and haircut for the time period he wants to go to. However, this movie just seems kind of sick and more sick then Marty's mum kissing him. Richard makes a recording to play while he sleeps to make himself travel back to 1912 and I'm getting angry about this process it is just so...ridiculous and stupid, oh good it didn't work. So he is upset and goes to Arthur the bell man for help finding more old Hotel stuff, Arthur tells him that everthing is in the attic. So off Richard goes digging around the hotel attic. Wait a minute how did he get to the attic, what no one in the hotel catches him and chucks him out of the hotel for trespassing. Well anyway he finds the 1912 guest book and his name is in it and so he goes back to his room and tries to do the hypnosis thing again with the tape recorder and hides it under the bed cause apparently having anything from present day visible makes this not work.

Well this time it did work, whatever. He is in 1912, you can tell because of the sound of horses outside, he wakes up in a woman's room and is trapped in there while the woman and a man bicker, Richard does a little Clark Kent stick after he escapes and then goes to Elise’s room but is turned away and he goes to the lobby and we see it is really busy and young Arthur is playing ball; I’m reminded of Danny in the Shining Mini Series, actually come to think of it, isn't this what happened to Jack Nicholson's Jack in the Stanley Kubrick film.

It takes 45 minutes for us to finally see Jane Seymour in this film and she says to Richard “Is it you, Is it?” Christopher Plummer turns up and interrupts then tells Richard to stay away or he'll have him removed from the hotel, Richard catches up with Elise and dances with her, she tells him she doesn't even know him, but then continues to dance with him and he comes off as a creepy stalker.

William (Christopher Plummer) has Richard removed and Elise follows and confronts him, he tells her who he is and she assumes that because he is a playwright that he wants her to do his play, he asks her why she asked is it you and she doesn't tell him then we see her smiling, yes cause all women love to be stalked, oh wait no we don't. She asks William if Richard is the one and he says only you can answer that. I would really appreciate some explanations right about now.

Well he persuades her to go walking with him and then finally checks into the hotel and then we get a montage of them getting to know each other. So she finally explains why she said is it you and it turns out that William knows a lot about the future and her career and that she was expecting a man who would change her life. I guess this means William is also a time traveller, but like the rest of this movie that is never explained.

The best part of this film is the snippet of the play Elise is doing and then Richard is summoned by William who explains that he believes he will ruin her and then has two thugs beat him up. Elise finishes the play and is scared that Richard is missing, she confronts William and tells him she will not stop looking for Richard, but the play is done and it is time for her to leave the hotel. Richard has been tied up and placed in the stables, he escapes and runs to find Elise, he hears that the theatre company have left and losses hope but Elise finds him and that feels like the end of the film, but no we have a love scene which then focus's on a flaming candle, then the next day she asks him will he marry her to which he laughs but replies yes.

OK I still hate the time travel element of this film, he has accidentally brought a 1979 penny with him this freaks out the music in the film and he wakes up back in present day. I just don't care any more, this film makes me want to watch Superman 4 rather then this and that film is just as stupid ahhhhhhh. so richard can't get back for some reason that again is not explained, Oh Yay I think Christopher Reeve's character is dead, please let this movie end.

the last image of the movie is Richard with Elise in the afterlife, you have got to be kidding me this is the ending of Titanic and I hated that film too.

This film is boring, the love story is uninteresting and the time travel is just plain moronic. I am shocked that both the story and screenplay were written by Richard Matheson the guy who wrote I am Legend, The Box and The Incredible Shrinking Man and other great Sci Fi stories.

There have been other time travel films that have had a great love story in them that were better Time After Time, Back To The Future 3 even the Butterfly effect had a good tragic love story.

I was serious about Superman 4, if I only had Somewhere In Time and Superman 4 on DVD and I could not rent, buy or download another film, given the choice I would watch Superman 4, yes it's awful and a rehash of the first film at times but at least it tries to be funny and well it has Gene Hackman.