Review of Timecode (2000) by John S — 01 Mar 2011

Time Code has a mountain of potential and it could have been one of the most important films of all time. But sadly, the story is only interesting for the first half, the impressive technological innovations are never fully realized , and the film is just too smug and in love with the smell of it's own farts (South Park reference FTW) to really get anywhere past narcissistic and pretentious. I hate to use the word "pretentious" because it so carelessly thrown about these days by wannabe film critics, but "pretentious" is the perfect word to describe this film. When analyzed past all of it's bells and whistles, Time Code isn't really anything special. And perhaps the worst part was the wannabe Jean-Luc Godard-like Brechtian techniques that were just not executed well and made the film feel even more pretentious. Strike that, the worst part is when the film proclaims how awesome it thinks it is, by bragging about it's impressive technological feat. Yes, it's impressive. But you don't need to tell us about it.

But I also have to admit that I enjoyed the film on some levels. The four stories linked together very cleverly, at least for the first 30 minutes or so, and it was addictively intriguing to watch how each story unfolded. There were also several moments that made clever use of it's structure that interested me. But in the end, the film sort of falls flat. Then again, I don't feel like giving this film anything short of 60. I don't know, I guess I still liked it on some level.