Timequest



Timequest (2002) is more of an idea than a full-fledged story. Hours before he is to be assassinated in Dealy Plaza, JFK receives a visitor from the future. The visitor tells JFK what will happen that day, asks to dance with Jacquelyn Kennedy, then disappears. The assassination averted, history follows a new path where Bobby becomes president in the 1970's, the Kennedy's destroy all their enemies thanks to information gleaned from interrogating Lee Harvey Oswald, and eventually die of old age after lending their name to the moon base. What little plot there is has to do with Bobby trying to find the man who will become the time traveling visitor, to keep him from inventing time travel in the first place. The theory here is that if time travel is invented someone else could use it to make sure John is assassinated. That the lack of a time traveler would mean no one stopped the assassination in the first place never occurs to anyone, and the movie doesn't seem to be interested in such paradoxes. Instead there is lots of name-dropping to let us know where people are in this alternative timeline. Bill Clinton didn't become President, instead he's a novelist known for his sex scenes, har har har.

Perhaps the whole movie would be a bit easier to take if the guy playing JFK looked anything like that famous man. Or if any of the people looked anything like their historical counterparts, even just a little. Larry Drake plays J. Edgar Hoover, and that's about as good as it gets. Bruce Campbell is also in the movie, playing a very Oliver Stone-ish filmmaker who has still managed to find a government cover-up on Nov. 22, 1963.

At the very end of the movie the music gets very ominous, and I can't figure out why. It felt to me like the director said, "Oops, I don't have an ending, maybe some scary music will make people think there's a twist!"

Posted: Tue - December 16, 2003 at      

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