Uncertainty is one of the worst things that can happen to a film. The proof of this is The Time Machine.

The film is, of course, based on the famous H. G. Wells story of the same name. This incarnation is directed by the author's great-grandson, Simon Wells. Normally, I try not to reference a DVD's extra content while talking about the film, but there are some telling revelations in the commentary track for this disc. Wells and editor Wayne Wahrman discuss in great detail many scenes that they trimmed (but wish they hadn't), scenes they never filmed (and wish they had) and scenes that they wished they had filmed differently. Never did I get the impression that there was some outside force keeping them from making the film they wanted. Rather it was their own doubt about whether or not they could pull it off.

This is too bad because, as I've said before, it's much more interesting to watch someone swing for the fence and miss than to watch them try to play it safe.

The elements exist within the film for an entertaining story: The actors are all first-rate, the visuals are dutifully stunning, and the story, well, the story is a classic. Unfortunately, Wells (the director, not the author) has managed to put all of the mechanics up on screen and none of the heart.

Guy Pierce, from the wonderful film Memento, stars as Alexander Hartigan. Hartigan is a college professor who, in his spare time, invents such things as microwave ovens and time machines. Like all movie inventors, Hartigan is a distracted man and can't seem to remember the little details, such as the day he intends to propose to his girlfriend, Emma (Sienna Guillory).

While on their date, Alexander and Emma are accosted by a robber. Emma is shot during a struggle to keep her engagement ring and dies in the inventor's arms. This is certainly a tragic event, but the film handles it so soon in the story and so clumsily, that the audience is never given time to care about the relationship (nor are we shown any convincing evidence that Hartigan cares about it either).

The film cuts from the dying Emma to Hartigan busily writing on a chalkboard. A title card tells us that four years have passed and by all appearances, Hartigan has spent that entire time writing on this chalkboard. He has perfected his time travel theories and built a time machine. His intention is to use the machine to travel back in time to save Emma. The plan fails and Emma dies once again.

Hartigan is convinced that the answers as to why he can't change the past must lie in the future, so he journeys to the year 2030. He spends about 10 minutes in this future world before deciding that he won't find any answers here, so he quickly hops back in his time machine to travel even further in to the future. For an inventor and scientist, this seems a very odd choice, considering that he makes his decision after only consulting the library, rather than any reputable scientific journals, or even a reputable scientist or two.

His journey into the future is interrupted and he finds himself in the year 2037. A construction project on the moon has gone horribly wrong, disrupting the moon's orbit and causing catastrophy on Earth. Again, leaving as quickly as he arrives, Hartigan fires up the time machine once again. A bump on the head knocks him unconscious, leaving him hurtling thousands of centuries into the future. He finally stops the machine some 800,000 later.

In this future world, Hartigan learns that humans have evolved into two separate species. The Eloi live above ground and the Morlocks live below. For reasons not adequately explained, the Morlocks feed upon the Eloi (apparently there are no other mammals on the planet to eat) and the Eloi seem to accept this as their fate. Even more strange is the fact that after 800,000, the Eloi still speak English. The film's explanation for how the language was preserved would be positively absurd in any other film, but in this one is only par for the course.

Hartigan makes it his personal mission to save the Eloi from the Morlocks. Given that the film has gone to great lengths to show us how single-mindedly focused Hartigan is on time travel and finding out why he can't save Emma, this sudden inspiration to become a hero seems out of place and contrived.

For all of the faults with the story, The Time Machine looks fantastic. Had even a fraction of the effort put into the visuals been channeled into story and characters, this might have been a better film. As is, The Time Machine is severely underdeveloped, glossing over areas that it should spend more time with. This isn't to say that watching the film was an entirely bad experience. In its own way, it was a fun movie to watch. But that's just the problem: watching is all it's good for. It's impossible to care at all about the story, making for a film that, when it ends, is entirely forgettable.