The Time Traveler's Wife

Somewhere there is someone smarter than I and that person can perfectly explain how the events in this movie can exist. Somewhere there is someone who can explain why Eric Bana looks exactly the same no matter how old or young he is with the exception of some grey in his hair. Somewhere there is someone who can explain to me why a couple would choose a song called "Love will tear us apart" as their first dance at their wedding. If that person is out there, please contact me.

Henry(Bana) and Clare(Rachel McAdams) are just like every other married couple; they fight because Henry is not home enough. She gets lonely and does not want to put her life on hold while he away all day, or all week, or for two weeks. He is just missing. Well, okay, he is not just missing because he is a time traveler. If you want an explanation for this, go elsewhere because the best we are going to get is some sort of genetic issue. He goes missing for days and days, and Clare is left to wonder if he is okay. Now, she knew about his condition before she married him. In fact, she has known since she was 7 years old thanks to one seriously creepy scene, where Henry, in his 30s, shows up to Clare's when Clare is 7 and he tells her they are friends in the future. So, her entire life has been wrapped up in Henry. Henry cannot control his time traveling, but when it is convenient for the story, he can predict when it will happen. For example, when he wants to show Clare he is a time traveler, it happens, yet when he is carrying plates to the dinner table, it hits him suddenly and he drops the plates. It is never explained why he can sometimes know when it is coming and other times not.

There is probably a romantic movie in here somewhere and maybe the women of the world find this romantic, but I do not get it. There is no real heat or passion between this perfectly attractive couple and the story unfolds in such a boring, typical way that it is difficult to get invested in the story. Also, how many montages about time travel can one movie have?? This movie thinks 4 is a good number. We get it, he time travels and he time travels naked and he has to break the law to survive.

The time travel effect is pretty nice, especially the final time and I guess there is a little suspense towards the end, even if the story gets totally bizarre when Clare gets pregnant. The minutes she miscarries and thinks the fetus might be a time traveler as well, I started to think a time traveling fetus movie would be infinitely more interesting than this one. How would people react to seeing a fetus appear and disappear? Where would the fetus go? If Henry often travels to the big moment in his own life, would the fetus keep going back to the night of conception? If the fetus were to then be born, would be traumatized by having witnessed it's parents having sex over and over again? Then, I began to wonder if the sex the fetus witnessed had any heat or passion because the sex in this movie did not.

Also, the question has to be asked, "If you are married to the 35 year old Eric Bana, but you have sex with the 25 year old Eric Bana, is that cheating?" Is that an okay thing to do in a movie? It is your husband, but it is not the Eric Bana you actually married. I think that question needed to be more deeply probed in this movie. Now, in a movie with the unbelievably hot Rachel McAdams, I should not be wandering off into time traveling fetus movies or adultery questions. That is just how bored I was. McAdams' dimples and the way she bites her lower lip when she is horny can only hold my attention for so long, because, well, she is only horny in the movie one time and it leads to weak sex, so boo.

The Time Traveler's Wife had a trailer that I loved and a movie that I hated. It was boring, illogical and did not have the romantic heat it should have with those two stars. They were both fine in the movie, but everything about the movie was safe, which a movie about time travel can be a lot of things, but safe is not one of those things. Hopefully, there is a spin off titled The Time Traveler's wife's fetus also time travels in the works, so the experience wouldn't have been such a waste of nearly two hours.

Final Grade: C- (I cannot give a movie that gives me Rachel McAdams' bare ass a D)