The first half of this decade has seen some great and successful movies for time travel. We start in 2010 with the release of the comedy Hot Tub Time Machine. The movie follows four friends who travel back in time in a time travelling hot tub to the year 1986. They become their younger selves. The movie would get a sequel, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 in 2015. Also released that year was video game adaptation Prince of Persia:The Sands of Time. The movie was not a hit but is historical in time travel for being the first time travel video game movie.
2011 would see two very good movies released. Firstly we have Source Code starring Jake Gyllenhaal. This science fiction thriller is a time loop movie where the main character Captain Colter Stevens is repeatedly transferred into the body of a dead person to relive the last eight minutes of his life during a terrorist attack. He must do this in order to prevent the terrorist attack. We also see the release of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. The movie focuses on a writer who finds himself travelling to Paris in the 1920s every midnight. The movie won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
The year 2012 would see time travel movies in varying genres. The latest movie in the series, Men in Black 3, would use time travel to send Agent J played by Will Smith to the 1960s to stop the assassination of his friend and partner Agent K, played by Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin. It received mostly positive reviews and opened at number one at the box office. We also saw the release of the comedy drama Safety Not Guaranteed. Starring Aubrey Plaza and Mark Duplass, it is about three magazine employees who interview a guy looking for a time travelling companion. Finally comes the release of action movie Looper. Based in 2044, a man kills people who are sent back in time by criminal organisations. One day his future self is sent back and he hesitates allowing his future self to escape and cause trouble.
2013 only sees one major time travel release in romance movie About Time. It is about a man who discovers he can time travel and uses it to change his past. While 2013 was quiet, 2014 would be huge for time travel. First the X-Men universe taps into time travel in X-Men: Days of Future Past. In the movie Wolverine’s consciousness to 1973 to prevent a future war which would bring the end for mutants. It is considered one of the best X-Men movies ever. There is also the critically loved movie Predestination. Starring Ethan Hawke, the movie is about a person who goes into the past to catch a terrorist. Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise would also be released. In the movie Cruise plays a man fighting in a war against an alien race. Every time he dies he returns to life before the start of a major battle. It is considered one of the best movies of the year. Finally we have Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. The movie is about astronauts who travel through a wormhole searching for a new planet to replace the dying Earth. It is a huge box office and critical success.
The time travel releases for 2015 include Terminator: Genisys and Project Almanac. Terminator: Genisys starts the same as The Terminator with John Connor sending Kyle Reese back in time to save his mother. However once he arrives he finds a whole new timeline from the first. Project Almanac is the first found footage movie about time travel. It is about a group of teenagers who find secret plans for a time machine and build one. Once they start using it, things get out of control.
Legacy of Time Travel in Movies
Time travel has proven to be one of the most enduring topics covered in movies. It has been apart of imaginations for a long time and will continue to do so for a long time. It has spawned some of the most well known and best movies of all time including The Terminator, Back To The Future, Planet of the Apes, Groundhog Day and The Time Machine. It has been apart of nearly every genre pushing it past its science fiction origins including comedies, westerns and romance movies. Big movie series have also used time travel in instalments from Harry Potter, X-Men and Evil Dead. We have also seen some of the biggest movie stars appear in time travel movies including Charlton Heston, Bing Crosby, Keanu Reeves, Bruce Willis, Sandra Bullock, Will Smith, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Marlon Brando.
Time travel will be around for along time in movies. We will continue to see characters travel to the past and future while it is still interesting. One day it may even be possible in real life and the person who invents the first time machine may be alive now.
CineMagic 