Filled with Britcom stars and time-travel disasters, Time Travel Is Dangerous sees best friends Ruth and Megan’s relationship stretched to its limits when they find that acquiring free antiques for their shop has a different kind of cost.
★★★☆☆
Time Travel Is Dangerous follows friends Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan (Megan Stevenson) through their attempts to keep their beloved vintage shop alive. After finding a time machine near the bins, they begin to visit various timelines and steal their artifacts in order to stock the shop without paying anything. However, as the film’s title may suggest, this backfires in a myriad of ways.
The film’s early setup is imaginative and enjoyable as we meet Ruth and Megan and are given a tour around their vintage shop. We get to see their early time travel hijinks—a scene in the Old West is particularly entertaining—and hear the pair scramble for excuses as to how they have ancient scrolls and medieval pewter on their shelves. All of the highlights and difficulties of their lives running the shop are on show, and it’s clear from the start why they love it so much.
One stumbling block, though, is that we don’t really get to see why Ruth and Megan love one another so much. Ruth is the quieter of the two, with Megan driving the time machine and being the customer favourite while Ruth sorts out the bills. Despite this sidelining, Ruth is still devoted to their friendship, and keeps helping Megan through thick and thin. More about the foundation of this friendship, a glance of their good moments and some past kindness from Megan, might explain why Ruth works so hard to tolerate a challenging situation for so long. As it stands, it’s difficult to understand why their bond is so strong.
A lot of love has gone into the sets and design, from the time machine—endearingly reminiscent of a fairground dodgem—to Ruth and Megan’s carefully stocked shop. The film’s cinematography is accomplished, with swirling time-travel vortexes popping with colour.
There are innovative moments in structure. The story is framed as a mockumentary, which allows for Ruth and Megan to be more honest to the cameras than they might be with one another. While they like to act as though life in the shop is harmonious, the cracks start to show once they have to explain their routines to a camera crew. There are also interesting, bite-sized chunks of a second plot paralleling their own friendship, in the form of an old TV show the pair like to watch—The Future, Today—starring Dr Ralph Sheldrake (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) and his robot companion (Johnny Vegas).
However, the mockumentary format feels somewhat underused. While it does a good job of setting up the characters, some of the potential—such as more interaction between the documentary makers and the characters, and jokes around the difficulty of bringing this documentary crew along while time travelling—are missed out on. The mockumentary can be an effective and appealing format for comedy, as seen in shows such as What We Do In The Shadows, but here it feels quickly forgotten about as the plot moves along.
One strength of the film is its ensemble, populated by a broad cast of comedians. Many make up the Technology Engineering, Scientific Thought and Innovation Society, including the previously mentioned Ralph, Valerie (Sophie Thompson), and their somewhat tyrannical chairman Martin Onions (Guy Henry). Henry is a particular highlight, crossing back and forth between cartoon villain and uptight pencil-pusher.
Time Travel Is Dangerous hits the plot beats of a buddy comedy with some mind-bending sci-fi thrown in. Even if some characters feel underdeveloped, it is enjoyable to watch debates about whether the vegans of Muswell Hill will buy antique Old West leather.
The Verdict
A creative concept and dynamic ensemble cast that could have been pushed further and kept tighter. While there are many fun ideas to be explored within the story, branching out into all of them makes the pacing a little slow.
Words by Casey Langton
Time Travel is Dangerous is in cinemas now.
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