FAQ About Time Travel   Starring: Anna Faris, Dean Lennox Kelly, Chris O'Dowd and Marc Wootton Lionsgate Home Entertainment UK RRP: £15.99 LGD94162 Certificate: 15 Available 07 September 2009

Ray is obsessed with time travel and all things sci-fi, Toby is a film nerd with ambition but absolutely no talent and their mate Pete is a sarcastic cynic who prefers darts to Darth Vader. As usual the boys are in the pub... But this time, a funny thing happens on the way to the bar - Ray is approached by Cassie, a beautiful girl who claims to be a time traveller. Meanwhile Pete stumbles through a rip in the time space continuum in the gents... Obviously. And so the three bunglers quickly realise there’s going to be more to their evening than peanuts and the pub quiz...

FAQ About Time Travel is a low budget movie that was co-produced by HBO Films and BBC Films. It was directed by Gareth Carrivick.

The film pokes fun at the sci-fi genre, while at the same time going to great lengths to ensure that all nit-picks are dealt with onscreen - and all of the corny jokes are also held up to ridicule.

The movie follows three friends (Ray, Toby and Pete) whose lives are going nowhere. They all work in the local tourist attraction by day and spend their evenings in their local pub talking rubbish. One night the three are engaged in a conversation about time travel. When Ray heads off to the bar he is stopped by a beautiful woman who claims to be from the future. Thinking his friends have got someone to wind him up, Ray goes along with the joke and then goes back to tell his friends he is impressed at the lengths they'll go to in order to poke fun at him. They have no idea what he is talking about.

Pete goes to the toilet, but on his return he discovers that everyone in the pub is dead... and then he sees a bearded, older version of himself in amongst the bodies. Rushing back to the toilet, he waits awhile before attempting to sneak out - planning to leave the pub - but he hears music and a crowd of people talking in the bar. When he looks inside everything is as it was before. He talks his friends into coming back to the toilets in order to repeat the experience, and when the three travel through time, they realise that getting back to their own time might not be so easy.

Fans of sci-fi movies like Back to the Future and Primer will find this an interesting, light-hearted take on the much used time travel format. The DVD's cover also pays homage to the Back to the Future posters.

If I had one complaint, other than the film is much too short, it's that the actress playing Millie "the editor" (Meredith Macneill) over plays her role. I felt like I was watching a pantomime villain. There's also the fact that a lot of elements that are set up never get the pay off they deserve. What is it that makes the three lads so famous in the future? Why doesn't the leak affect anyone else in the pub? And why does everyone appear to be American in the future?

For a modern movie I was surprised by the fact there were no extras on this DVD.

While an entertaining enough film, it might leave many feeling a little short changed.

7

Darren Rea