Michael Crichton's novel Timeline was full of the texture and flavor of the medieval world -- at least as I imagine it. Was his description accurate? There's no way I can know, although he claims to have done considerable research.

The visceral experience of the novel is what is completely absent from the filmed version. This isn't even the Cliff's Notes version. The film has been stripped of all feeling and emotion in an attempt to cash in on the action aspects of the story. And the result is a boring failure.

The premise of the story, both in the book and the film is that a company called ITC, run by a man named Robert Doniger (think Bill Gates) is working on technology to to transmit solid objects in a manner similar to a fax. The problem is that the technology has some flaws, but Doniger (David Thewlis) refuses to acknowledge the danger. Specifically, rather than fax from one place to another, the machine mysteriously sends objects back in time -- to a specific time and place in 14th century France.

In an effort to discover why his machine seems to be tied to this time and place, Doniger funds an archeological dig to look for clues. When Professor Edward Johnson (Billy Connolly) begins to wonder how it is that Doniger is able to so accurately predict dig locations, he travels to ITC headquarters, where is sent back into the past and is accidentally trapped there.

Knowing the places where his team is working, Johnson leaves a message in the past in the hopes that they'll discover it and figure out a way to rescue him. This is exactly what happens.

Johnson's son, Chris (Paul Walker) and two of his head archeologists, Andre Marek (Gerard Butler) and Kate Ericson (Frances O'Connor) bully ITC into meeting with them and ultimately sending them back to rescue the professor.

In the novel, the characters are given several days in the 14th century. They must figure out a way to fit in with that world and interract with other people in a completely new way. There is a real sense of mystery about what happened to the professor and why and when the characters become entwined in the conflict, the danger seems authentic.

The film doesn't give its characters this luxury. They are expected to accomplish much of what happens in the novel, but within a time frame of only 6 hours. The result is that the film abandons all of the fascination and wonder of the past and degenerates instead into simply one action set piece after another. This might not have been so terrible if the film wasn't so flawed in so many other ways.

For one thing, 14th century France never quite looks like anything more than a studio backlot. Crichton included some extremely detailed descriptions of the area within his novel and they all seem to have been ignored. After seeing filmmakers create a thoroughly convincing Middle Earth for the Lord of the Rings films, Timeline comes off looking like some made-for-TV after school special.

More problematic, however, are the casting choices. Paul Walker, in the lead role of Chris, is about as wrong an actor as I can imagine for the part. His acting skills are so thoroughly one-dimensional that if everything else about the film were solid, he'd still manage to bring it crashing down. Frances O'Connor and Billy Connolly fair no better, each offering up completely unconvincing emotional range.

The only high point in the film is Gerard Butler as Marek. Even though his character is massively simplified from the Marek in the book, Butler still manages to infuse the performance with personality and interest.

Richard Donner directed Timeline and we know from past experiences (Lethal Weapon, Superman) that he can direct action and adventure with the best of them. I don't know if he's just out of practice these days, or maybe he wasn't up to putting his full attention into this project. Either way, this is definitely not one of his best efforts, despite one great looking scene involving the firing of trebuchets in a night battle.

All in all, Timeline was a fairly disappointing production and lacks pretty much everything that made the novel fun and interesting to read.