The Time Capsule (2022) User Reviews

Really silly ratings here. What movie is, but not much

[pkpera · 5/10 · 11 September 2022]

I did not plan to write review of this movie, but seeing about 10 1-ns in row here (rated by usefulness or whatever), followed with rating 10 - made me to do it.

I think that there were some good ideas, scenes, dialogs in this movie, and acting was OK. The reason for hate is probably main character, actor playing it. Not some macho, charismatic one. I had more problems with actress playing Elise. Obviously more than 18 years, rather about 25. And was not impressed with her acting too. Although material was not impressive too.

Most likeable character was wife, especially in first hour.

Low budget, indeed. Despite some interstellar travels with speed near to light speed, cars on streets were like today cars. All it did not look as some even 'near' future with much more advanced technology.

Ending was little disappointment, and a bit rushed in my opinion.

There were some good points about political fights in elections, about depression.

Overall, pretty inconsistent.

Awful, and not even in a fun way

[feelingthefhvibe · 1/10 · 17 June 2022]

What drew me to the film was Brianna Hildebrand, having had conflicting opinions on her from her previous works and looking for a bit of a tie-breaker. What compelled me to write a review, though, was seeing the sharp split in the few reviews offered for the film. It looks like the divide is between people that watched it, and people that are trying to sell it, which is always a hoot.

I'm one of the ones that watched it. Regrettably.

The movie trailer tells you nearly everything you need to know about this story. Slapshod science being used solely to create a scenario where a middle-aged, floundering man has an excuse to get romantically involved with a teenaged girl. It genuinely never got deeper than that, and no matter the romantic music put on top of the scenes, it also never got less creepy than that premise suggests.

There was an element of predictability in the way the story unfolded that was tedious and cringey in turns. Scenes went on way too long. The dialogue felt awkward and forced. The audio balancing was amateurish. Watching the film was something I endured out of curiosity, and seeing other reviews describe this film as a 'comedy'... I think we watched different movies. I can't recall a single time I laughed. It's not framed as a comedy at all.

I'd recommend giving this movie a pass. It had nothing memorable to offer, all set to the tune of an incredibly inappropriate, groomer-y 'romance'. Bleh.

Ignore the 1/10 & 10/10 ratings... See it

[mannimario · 7/10 · 30 January 2023]

My first advice... Ignore the 1/10 & 10/10 ratings... See it for yourself.

To the story. I liked it. I do not understand the bad reviews. This never deserves a 1/10 and I agree, also not a 10/10, but my 6 ot 7/10 is real. At least for me. See the story of love is one thing. But another, the story of life, and decision making, choosing your personal path in life. This is a story everyone could tell. Most people make decisions, that in their minds, they have to rigidly cling to, and because of whatever fear, they close their hearts and make all wishes and dreams go away... Lifelong... Jack resembles this pattern behaviour in all of us... But the story is also the story of finding ones authentic self. Doesn't matter how long it takes, or how hard it is. It is worth finding ourselves... Finding out, what we realy want. Jack did it. And you?

Original Story Line

[chubbydave · 7/10 · 11 May 2023]

You know how they reuse the same story line over and over again. The super spy who can beat up 15 armed men with nothing but a pool noodle. The RomCom where they accidentally meet, some sparks fly, then a disagreement separates them but in the end they get back together? There are so many storylines that are so played.

This is original. Two teenagers fall in love. Then one goes on a intergalactic voyage. She comes back and everyone has aged 20 years but she hasn't aged a day. Then she finds her old flame, now close to 40, and they rekindle their romance.

Ok, it's pretty stupid. I agree. Bring back the guy with the pool noodle. One star for originality. Six stars for Brianna Hildebrand. She is a talented actress, and I'm looking forward to seeing her work for many years to come.

A film for our time

[midnightisburning · 1/10 · 13 June 2022]

After a failed senatorial campaign, struggling politician Jack and his wife Maggie return to Jack's old, rural stomping ground for some much needed downtime. It's a place full of memories and people Jack grew up with, including it turns out, "the one who got away"--very, very far away.

When Jack runs into his high school sweetheart over a can of asparagus in a grocery aisle, sparks fly, but perhaps not in the way expected. Thanks to a cryo-slept trip to the stars and back, time-dilated Elise (Brianna Hildebrand of Lucifer Season 6) is still physically and mentally an 18-year-old, while earthbound Jack is knocking on 40's door. Elise is trying to find her place in a world that's changed without her. Jack is trying to get back to the person he once was. Can they ever hope to be together with a 22+ year age gap and Jack's marriage getting in their way?

On the surface, it may seem like Elise's perspective would be the most interesting one to examine, but writers Erwann Marshall and Chad Fifer understand it's the male perspective we need most here. There are simply far too few stories exploring the Herculean struggle married, 40-year-old men face when lured in by the siren's call of the barely-legal 18-year-old girls who love them.

Perhaps nothing better encompasses Jack's struggle than when, after a night of partying and more with 18-year-old Elise, he must return home to his toxic 30-something wife and suffer having sex with her, even though she's not ovulating at all.

If ever there were a film that could accurately represent the zeitgeist of 2020s America, it might be The Time Capsule. It's a movie that will leave you breathless with its implications, right to its beautifully bittersweet end.

Original and charming film

[Erick_Till · 7/10 · 8 December 2022]

I believe that all people who ranked this movie as 1 urgently need a shrink. You can only see evil if there is evil within you.

I was shocked by the amount of unhelpful comments about the film. The year 2022 surprised by the number of bad and boring movies that were released. Basically more of the same over and over again.

The Time Capsule is a good surprise. I didn't have high expectations, but I decided to take a chance, especially after seeing the amount of haters.

The film has good performances, a creative story and takes a different look at how love can withstand time. Brianna is very cute and deserves praise for her performance. It's important to remember that this movie doesn't have an unlimited budget, but I'm sure you'll like it.

Who thought this was a good idea?

[LoftheB · 1/10 · 14 June 2022]

I'll admit that my initial interest was with the weird typecasting of Brianna Hildebrand in yet another role where she's time-travelling. The curse of having a baby-face, I suppose.

But once that curiosity had been satisfied, I was left with the entire rest of the movie, which... yikes. Best way I can sum it up is "yikes." There are movies where you can tell the writers are male, and this is absolutely one of them. Our two main female characters are, respectively, the "wife that the main character resents being tied to, and thus as the movie progresses becomes more and more of an outright harpy to justify his waning interest," and "literally teenager who obviously reciprocates the attraction this middle-aged man is feeling for her, as a ham-handed way to try and make it less horrifying when he pursues her."

The premise seemed like a whole lot of justification to make it seem acceptable for a "just turned 18" 18 year old to be in a relationship with a middle-aged man. While the ending, at the very last moment, veered away from being as gross as it certainly had the potential to be, I was left with only one pressing question - Who on earth was this movie made for?

Hard to make an argument that the target audience is anything other than aging men who want a fantasy of leaving their aging wives to pursue younger women and recapture their lost youth, and wow, do we not need any more movies catering to them. The whole thing left me feeling disgruntled and disgusted. The messaging was appalling, the worldbuilding shabby, the pacing was BAD, and the only likeable character was the token black friend - who was clearly so bored with his small-town life that stirring up drama with the main characters seemed to be not just a recurring coincidence, but his outright passion.

1/10. Do not recommend.

Grounded Science Fiction with a lot of heart

[gazpacha · 8/10 · 14 June 2022]

Compelling performance by this young actress. I totally believed she was lost in this place of being treated like a kid by those who knew her before and not fitting in with the young people she was meeting now. So it made sense to me that she would want to connect with her former boyfriend even though he now "looks old".

Such an interesting concept and I liked how the filmmaker handled the ending. Very unique!!

True Love

[zealous_twilight · 10 September 2022]

This movie is about True Love and what you would do to get it back. Not sure why people chose this movie to point out age difference. There are so many other movies with lager age gaps here's a few: Entrapment - Catherine Zeta-Jones 29 / Sean Connery 68 Lost in Translation-Scarlett Johansson 18 / Bill Murray was 52 Something's Gotta Give - Amanda Peet 31 / Jack Nicholson - 66 The Man Who Wasn't There - Johansson 16 / Billy Bob Thornton 46 Poison Ivy - Drew Barrymore 17 / Tom Skerritt 58 Shopgirl,-Claire Danes / Steve Martin Age difference: 34 years Most of the great actors and actress are up there in age a their counterparts are going to be much younger. Jack Nicholson 1937 Sean Connery 1930 to name a few. Oh and Elvis.

Special Relativity...it's real.

[jd-97226 · 7/10 · 16 September 2023]

I'm a sucker for any "time" related sci-fy, so the plot got hocked, it's 1 am so why not? A 17yo girl goes on a space flight leaving her 18yo boyfriend behind. These flights are not supposed to come back to Earth but hers does a few months later. Even though her time was only a few months, 20 years had passed in Earth due to Time Dilation given by Special Relativity. She's now 18yo while the ex-boyfriend is a married 38yo, creepy.

The movie was kinda of cute until their "drunken" scene by the lake; I would've edited it out and just have him explain why it can't workout. I'm GenX, can't imagine having a relationship with a millennial; just the political views would likely be vastly different. Still the movie was OK and maybe worth ~6.2 instead of 5.3.

Now the technical problem. The girl went out for the space trip for just a few months yet 20 years went by in Earth. The space ship had to travel at about 99.97% the speed of light for these #'s to work out. This speed is highly unlikely in the near future.

Not worth the time

[itsabadmoviebruh · 1/10 · 19 June 2022]

The premise (middle-aged man has a 'sci-fi' reason to get in a relationship with a teenager) was gross. The movie was incredibly predictable, charmless, and forgettable.

If you want a sci-fi movie, there's so many better ones out there. The only sci-fi aspect to this was in creating a flimsy excuse for the creepy relationship to happen. It wasn't explored at all beyond that. If you want a romance, this is such an uncomfortable choice. A 'maybe Lolita would be more your speed' kind of choice. And if you want a comedy, just... watch anything else. This movie was painfully flat and took itself seriously, which was pretentious at best, given how little substance there was.

It's a waste of time.

Why are we still pitting women against each other?

[awfulpidgeon · 1/10 · 14 June 2022]

While the concept of this movie could have been interesting, the execution was bad and uncomfortable.

Instead of focusing on Elise (Brianna Hildebrand) and her no doubt difficult adjustment back into a society that has aged 20 years in her absence (which for her was the blink of an eye), we instead are given perspective of a middle aged man, Jack (Todd Grinnell), struggling with his decision to leave a wife that he has built a life with to pursue the barely legal "one that got away", who he dated for one summer at age 18, and who he is now 20 years older than both mentally and physically.

The transparency that is shown in painting Maggie (KaDee Strickland) as the "bad wife" is painful. The intention, over the course of the film, is for the audience to begin to see Maggie as overbearing, cold, bitter, and 'un-fun', giving Jack all of the excuses he needs to leave her in the end and pursue his much younger ex-girlfriend. However, the writing here was bad, in my opinion, and made this move far too obvious and with thinly veiled misogyny to boot. In reality, I sympathized with Maggie over Jack, and seeing Maggie so abruptly turn bitter and oftentimes downright rude took me out of the story completely. It's 2022, why are we still writing stories about women hating each other?

A work focused around Elise could have been so interesting and layered - showing her assimilating back into life when everyone she knew has moved on and the mental and emotional struggles that come along with that, alas. Overall, this is another man's mid-life crisis fantasy played out on screen.

1/10.

Boring and creepy

[pndnthstrs · 1/10 · 15 June 2022]

NOTE: This is my second time posting this review. I first submitted a review on 6/14/2022 but it was mysteriously taken down without any notification. Read into that what you will! Also, since I have a second chance to add some thoughts here, I would also like to add that the audio and sound mixing in this movie are at times very bad.

Here is my original review:

I watched this movie because of the, shall we say, "interesting" premise and the rising star power of Brianna Hildebrand. I wondered how such an inherently creepy premise (a middle-aged man rekindling his high school romance with a girl who is still physically and mentally 18 via time dilation) could be executed without being an uncomfortable and disturbing experience for actors, characters, and audience alike. Well, the answer is it can't! This movie is just as creepy as one might expect after reading the synopsis. It seeks to legitimize the relationship through various means but these attempts never come across as more than window dressing to disguise and justify a man's inappropriate attraction to a girl TWENTY years younger than him. My advice to potential viewers is to give this one a miss. And my advice to Brianna is to seek better projects to advance her career!

Barely watchable

[sayingnotobadmovies · 1/10 · 11 July 2022]

Aside from the premise being... bad. Just. Objectively bad. Aside from that, though, the movie was painfully boring. It's pitched as sci-fi while having barely any sci-fi elements. It's pitched as romantic or comedic while the comedy is absent entirely and the romance only expressed in a deeply inappropriate relationship.

It's just a painfully slow predictable drag of our creepy main character trying to find self-worth by using a teenaged girl. It's not a novel concept and definitely not one worth indulging, no matter how 'cool' and 'original' the creators are desperately trying to sell the framework as being. Skip this movie. It isn't worth your time.

Boring and skeevy

[itsstillabadmoviebruh · 1/10 · 27 June 2022]

Aside from being incredibly boring, with shallow characters and slow pacing, the movie's premise was the stuff of middle-aged men's creepy fantasies. Time travel being used just so a guy in his 40s can get involved with a teenager? Gross. Gross, uninteresting, and unpleasant to watch.

A lovely movie just like The Lake House

[malc-15597 · 9/10 · 17 January 2023]

This reminds me very much of the The Lake House(2006) which is a wonderful romantic drama with lots of twists and turns. It left me in the same mood as that film so I'll certainly watch it again.

If you are on the fence about watching this then pay no attention to many of the reasonably sounding negative reviews as they don't reflect reality. Its hard to imagine those reviewers actually watched all the way through.

Firstly it has a wonderful script, with plenty of drama, and no plot holes for me. At times I wasn't sure who was in love with who as there are at least three possibles, perhaps more, but I'll not spoil things.

The cast are all new to me and everyone seemed so realistic in their roles. Its hard to pick anyone out as the casting worked so well. Again they all seemed real and everyone different.

For me its 9 out of 10, as for some reason it seemed a bit short although at 1h 45m it is longer than The Lake House. I'm so glad I ignored those early negative reviews.

huh???

[Pip_pip_pirrio · 1/10 · 11 July 2022]

What on earth was the point of this movie?? I've seen some positive reviews talking about how our main character is nostalgic, and conflicted, and relatable, and I'm just sitting here thinking: did we watch the same movie.

And if our main character is relatable.... maybe have a seat right over there.

Wow.

The tl;dr is space travel/time dilation is used to set up a premise for a middle-aged politician to try and rekindle a childhood romance with a girl who is literally still a child.

Oh wait, no, I recall the movie saying she'd "just turned 18", so that makes it... better???

Even if the ending avoided being as grim as the set-up allowed for, it's still deeply skeevy. This shouldn't have been made. It was slow-paced and uncomfortable. I guess if you're into middle aged men going after teenagers, this could be fun to watch. 'Oh but he was just trying to rekindle the emotional place of his youth' okay cool but he's doing it by kissing a teenager romantically. 'Oh but she came on to him first' do you hear yourself. Literally do you hear yourself.

This was a bad movie.

A GOOD IDEA

[keithhorner · 3/10 · 12 January 2023]

Nothing sensational or oscar winning but interesting and will pass an hour or so comfortably. Give it a go. The negative reviews here need to relax a bit! The premise is a classic what if in science fiction but I cannot recall the diea of a person returning to Earth after years in space being unaged as a film plot. The idea poses many issues for the naturally aged family and others the space traveller comes back to see. Steadily paced, relying on the dialogue to create the issues and concerns and to show the testing of relationships. Perhaps, a bigger budget , star status actors and top director would have demanded more but the idea is there and they have put it up to be quietly enjoyed.

How incredibly emotionless

[gentledriftj · 1/10 · 3 September 2023]

I kept rolling my eyes throughout this movie. Its like it was made by adults who are so "upright" and "pure" that heaven forbid they take a chance. It has no romance, nothing to offer and just because there is an age gap doesnt mean that he should not have at least tried going on one date with her. All he did was talk about how mature he was the entire time and then let her go at the end. That is not a movie, thats a waste of a life and waste of a film.

I hated his wife with a passion, she was so cold and mean. It would have been different if it went somewhere, but it just repeats tired old talking points again and again.

Just bad

[hafthorsmoviereviews · 1/10 · 11 September 2022]

I regret the time I spent watching this movie. The premise was pretty disgusting, but that aside, you're still left with the fundamental problems that the delivery was mediocre and the pacing was painful.

There are crumbs of ideas here, but those ideas were either insufficiently fleshed out, or entirely not worth fleshing out. To its merit, it was competently shot and the actors were certainly trying, but with the lead being a charisma-void and the script being... that. There's a limit to what competent acting can do.

Watched it with a group and if not for the social element and the alcohol, I really don't think I'd've bothered finishing the movie. It has no charm at all.

Skip it

[gord_muir · 3/10 · 14 January 2023]

Bad writing, worse acting, just skip it and save yourself some pain.

We gave it a try, and both my wife and i agreed to give it up about a half hour in.

The characters have no charm to them, no likeability, and the writing is cheesy at best. Poorly filmed, poorly acted, just skip it.

The idea could have been good, but their apparently very limited budget did not allow any reasonable fleshing out of the story.

Good try, next time get some actors that can help you feel something for them, and some writers that can help the actors do their job better.

Come to think of it, I'm going to rewrite this entire movie and submit it to the studios. I'm sure mine will be better.

I really enjoyed this movie

[johnho-50288 · 10/10 · 11 July 2022]

There's some weird brigading going on in the reviews but here's my review from someone who watched it as a work of art rather than as a means to unrelated political statements. The movie tells the story of a politician who just lost a huge election and wonders what will make him happy. Here's where the sci fi premise comes in. His high school girlfriend just returned to earth after a failed attempt at colonizing another planet. Due to time dilation (a real, measurable phenomenon) she has barely aged while 20 years has gone by for Jack, the politician.

This is not some creepy movie where Jack is physically attracted to Elise, his ex girlfriend, and decides he wants to leave his wife. Elise reminds him of a time when he was idealistic and passionate. These are traits he had when he entered politics but it's implied our political system has sapped the joy and enthusiasm out of his career. His wife wants him to continue but even before Elise shows up it's clear Jack is having a change of heart about his career, and by extension, his relationship with his very career minded wife.

I won't spoil the ending but suffice to say Jack DOES NOT end up with 20 year old Elise. It seems, to me at least if not someone who seems to have written at least 10 reviews by him/herself, that the status of their friendship is left up in the air at the end of the movie. It's up to the audience to wonder what they will or, maybe, should do?

I enjoyed it and I thought the age gap was handled with a lot of grace and care. The leads are all outstanding and while the movie is clearly on the lower side budget wise, the production values and cinematography appear to me to be excellent. My girlfriend cried at the end. I didn't but I never cry. We both agreed on what should happen but I won't spoil that. High recommended.

The Sci-fi angle was kinda cool

[tedjordan-44348 · 3/10 · 4 June 2023]

I might be too religious and too realistic for a film like this.

A wife is going to invite the husband's old flame to dinner?

A friend is going to encourage their buddy to leave a marriage because of puppy love?

Probably, the only realistic piece is that a dad is going to try and keep an old creep from seeing his daughter.

I did like some of the Sci-fi issues of suspended animation. The world moves on, with or without you.

But I just felt the situation was impractical, and unrealistic. His wife is going to coach the girl on how to steal her man?

He's going to give up everything for love, when in 10 years time he's going to end up in the exact same situation he had with his wife?

For some reason I can watch Fast & Furious and take my realistic hat off and enjoy the movie as a bank vault get dragged through city streets by two cars on cables, but Time Capsule frustrated me. Why risk your marriage?

Thought provoking movie with an amazingly talented cast!

[lawelzig · 10/10 · 14 June 2022]

The Time Capsule is a movie for both the sci-fi movie fan and a romance movie fan!

What I loved most about this movie is that it addresses something we have yet to face - people basically time traveling as a result of time dilation while in a cryo-type chamber - yet seems within the realm of possibility given our modern age and technology. While plenty of movies have had time travel components (Back to the Future, off the top of my head), none has dealt with it in this way. The sci-fi movie fan in me loved thinking about time travel in this way. The idea that people could basically be frozen in time and return to the future without really aging would create a host of issues, some of which the movie addresses head on. For example, how would that person fit in, in the future they return to?

For Elise (Brianna Hildebrand), once she returned, she struggled to find exactly where she belonged - with her "old" friends or should she make new friends more her "age?" Elise discusses this dilemma, that the friends she had before have aged 20 years and so they have almost nothing in common, and yet the people who look her age now do not have much in common with her either because trends, music, etc. Have all changed. Brianna is such an amazing and talented actor that I could almost feel the conflict within Elise. Even with subtle eye movements, Brianna was able to convey so many emotions without saying a word.

While I think this is a fun and thought-provoking movie for a variety of ages, I think this movie especially appeals to folks in the middle of their lives, to reflect on their lives - the goals and dreams we had versus what our life actually is, maybe because of compromises we made or because of a changing of circumstances. Jack (Todd Grinnell) does a great job of showing the real struggle between the life he has made for himself (married, politician) thinking he would never see his first love every again versus the life he had dreamed of with Elise, once Elise does come back from space. While some audience members might be put off by the age difference between Jack and Elise, it was a situation that was never supposed to happen, and they are doing their best to navigate the new circumstances it has created. When Jack ultimately decides to leave for 10 years, although it might not seem long enough to make up for the age gap, Elise had left the colony to come back to Jack because she believed they were meant to be together. When Elise left, Jack thought he would never see her again, and he had to find a way to move on. But when Jack leaves, Elise knows he will be coming back, and 10 years is a long time to wait for your true love, should that be that case, to return.

And then there is Maggie (KaDee Strickland)! I kept imagining myself as Maggie as I watched this movie - imaging how I would react if my partner's first love from 20 years ago suddenly showed up and looked 18! I could feel her protectiveness over her marriage and everything she had sacrificed for the sake of her marriage, and for her husband's career. KaDee did an amazing job at making the audience fluctuate between rooting for and against Maggie. But what I appreciated about Maggie's character, and especially the way KaDee played the role, is that you could literally feel her inner conflict play out on screen. At times, I found myself rooting for Jack and Maggie to end up together, imagining the hurt and anger I would be feeling if this was happening to me.

Not only is this movie great for its sci-fi elements and romantic elements, it is so funny, which is not surprise given that the character of Patrice is played by Baron Vaughn, who is a hilariously talented comedian! Besides the incredible acting by the cast, the filmography (Edward Herrera) was beautiful! I definitely encourage anyone who loves sci-fi, romance, or comedy to check out this film!

Checkout this fun sci-fi rom-com with an original story!

[seth-59671 · 10/10 · 19 June 2022]

Writer director Erwann Marshall leverages an interesting premise to explore concepts around first loves, enduring friendships, compromises, second chances, and self rediscovery. Stars Todd Grinnell and Brianna Hildebrand skillfully navigate a complex and dynamic tension that successfully keeps the audience guessing. This is a thoughtful yet fun and touching movie that is definitely worth checking out!