d_m_s Wasted about an hour of my life on this film, thinking it was going to be a decent time travel film and maybe even a hidden gem.However, it was so bad I couldn't even finish the thing.The acting (bar Jeff Daniels and the guy playing the bus driver) was uniformly terrible. It felt like watching one of those really cheap daytime TV shows full of people who can't act.The storyline was an unsophisticated and childish idea about sight-seeing time travellers who visit places where disastrous events are about to take place so they can observe for their own pleasure.The daftest thing though, was how Jeff Daniels finds out about the time travellers, which is via finding a passport belonging to one of them with lots of different dates on it. Forgetting the possible issues around a time traveller using the same passport for tens or even hundreds of years without it being an issue (I'm thinking here about how passports have changed over the years and they would need different ones for different time periods), the most stupid thing about it is how he suddenly jumps to the conclusion of them being time travellers without even a hint of scepticism or even considering any other possible scenarios (such as a fake passport or even just putting it down to some weird unexplainable anomaly). Of all they ways he could have discovered their secret, this was about the daftest and his sudden conviction that were time travellers based on this passport with mismatching dates on it was not at all believable and rather ludicrous.Terrible film.

SnoopyStyle Ben Wilson (Jeff Daniels) is haunted by his wife Carolyn's freak accident. Carolyn's father Judge Caldwell still blames him for her death. He is renovating a country inn with his daughter Hillary (Ariana Richards). Before he's done, Madame Iovine comes to rent out the entire house for 3 nights avoiding the hotel in town. He gets suspicious of the group that she's leading. Mr. Quish is a late arrival covered with a layer of ash. The bus driver Oscar found them waiting in the middle of nowhere and they don't seem to have any cameras. Mr. Quish gets sideswiped by a car and the doctor finds a mysterious object in his head. Ben finds Quish's passport with stamps of disaster dates. Quish warns him to leave town with his family immediately. The judge uses his influence to take temporary custody of Hillary. That night, a meteor hits the town.It has a good sci-fi time travel idea. The style and the scale is closer to a good TV movie. The action and effects are not high standard. Jeff Daniels does a good job maintaining control of the screen. However I wish the other characters especially the time travelers are much more compelling. They could have been more interesting. This is generally a good movie but nothing spectacular.

vitachiel Because it seems that only the viewers who were positive about this film have reacted thus far, I feel compelled to hand over my own, once again grouchy contribution. First of all, the way time traveling is portrayed here is laughably besides any possible reality. Of course, most time travel movies suffer in this regard, but in Timescape they take it far too seriously. Some reviewers talk about a witty, intelligent story that will make you think. Well, no, it rather makes me sleep. Jeff Daniels is very middle of the road and the disaster groupies, though coming from the future, do not make a smart and well-prepared impression, to say the least.

John-Hornby4 I saw this film on TV and it reminded me of a Sci-Fi story I had read many years ago in a Sci-Fi magazine called, at that time, "Astounding Science Fiction". The title of the story was "Vintage Season" and I believe the author was Lawrence O'Donnell. Incidentally, I still have the magazine. This information may be of use to followers of this genre and if anyone knows how I may be able to obtain a copy of a later published book by this author containing this story I would appreciate it.As far as the film is concerned I must add that, in my opinion, it was cleverly directed and the acting by Jeff Daniels was up to his usual good standard. There is no need for me to outline the plot as this has already been done except to say that, although I personally have always been interested in time travel stories and/or films, there is no need to be acquainted with this genre to follow the plot and enjoy the film. I saw the film under the title "Timescape" which is elusive enough to attract attention. In my opinion the film has a softer and more acceptable ending than the story but otherwise adheres to the original quite well. I would give it full marks as a film which does not contain any far-fetched sequences so often included in other films of this genre.