RATING: 4 out of 10.
VERDICT: Wish we could travel back in time and stop this one being made...

Ya see, the novel was actually pretty good. It was an adventure tale that managed to make some fairly solid social observations at the same time, without cramming them down your throat. The original movie version wasn't too bad, either. But hey, you know the Hollywood credo: if we can remake something and make a few bucks, let's do it -- regardless of how piss poor the remake will turn out to be.

Surprisingly, Guy Pearce actually does a pretty good job playing an American professor in the late 1800s whose fiancee is murdered just after he proposes to her. Four years later, he completes a time machine to go back and stop the murder from happening -- but she simply dies in a different way. Seeking answers to why he can't change the past (even though he clearly has), he unaccountably travels forward to 2030, then 2037, where an accident on a lunar base causes the moon to break up and screw up the earth. Another quick trip forward -- this time 800,000 years -- and he discovers that the human race has 'split' into the peaceable Eloi and the not-so-peacable Morlocks. Of course, in 800,000 years you might think that people would not still speak American -- and you'd be right. Fortunately, though, they pass on the language via old bits of writing on signs that have weathered the 800,000 years remarkably intact. And, of course, that means that all the important Eloi people (mainly the somewhat implausably-cast Samantha Mumba and her son, Omero Mumba) can speak flawless English. How convenient.

And on we go. Orlando Jones, who plays a hologram in 2030, turns up (batteries have obviously improved by 2030; my Duracells don't last 80 hours, let alone 800,000 years), the script becomes completely ludicrous, Jeremy Irons turns up bathed in talcum powder, and if you can't guess the ending by half way through the movie you're probably breathing by photosynthesis.

Much has been made of the fact that Simon Wells is H. G.'s great-grandson -- as if that, somehow, makes him eminently qualified to direct this movie. But it turns out that nepotism has its limits, especially when the person in question has only ever been involved in animated movies in the past ("The Prince Of Egypt" was his most recent co-directing stint). The direction is mediocre at best, with lots of shaky hand-held camera shots trying to give the impression of urgency, and actually giving the impression of amateurism.

If they ever do manage to invent a time-travel machine, our vote is that the first thing they do is travel back and burn the script for this one before it ever gets into the hands of a greedy studio executive.