Time Changer (2002)
"Time Changer" is pure propaganda,
I'll admit it. Yet, somehow, this Bible-thumpin',
low-budget, cheesy, and averagely acted "Religious"
film didn't bug me too much. If nothing else, it seemed
pretty harmless. Wrong-headed, but harmless.
The producers/distributors/filmmakers
have done a pretty damn fine job of promoting the
thing. The premise of time travel and the sci-fi aspects
of the film are really played-up in the "generic"
ads for the film. But the powers-that-be also took
the old "Religious Right" underdog approach when promoting
the film to churches. The promoters of the piece sent
out some 3,500 video tapes to pastors, youth pastors
and other church leaders extolling the virtuousness
of the film while also letting them know that they
had to go to cinemas and support religious films (i.e.
pay admission price) if they wanted cinemas to continue
to program religious fare. (Hey, we gay people use
that kind of "underdog" marketing too). All of this
smart marketing has paid off and the film has actually
played in Austin for several weeks.
This promotional video also featured
one of the film's stars, Born-Again TV actor Gavin
MacLeod. The former Captain Stubing (on TV's "Love
Boat"), who also played on the "Mary Tyler Moore"
show, seems as eager to hype the film as its makers.
The film's title and it's dual approach
to promotion surely hasn't hurt it in getting people
to come see it. But once they are in the theater seats,
the film is unashamed in it's Christian dogmatism
while unspooling. The reason I saw it was simply this:
I knew it was a Christian film but it's sci-fi approach
intrigued me. Plus its premise, as related in the
press materials, suggests that the plot involved a
religious scholar who, when projected into modern
times via time travel, would see the effects his writing
has had on the modern world. This sounded interesting.
Okay, here's where I spoil the "big
surprise" for you, so don't continue to read if you
don't want to have the film spoiled for you. I do
this because it is important to reveal this to discuss
the movie: The religious scholar has written a book
which suggests that it is okay to teach morals to
people without teaching that Christ is the voice which
enunciated those morals to the world. In other words,
the film's theme says that it isn't important enough
to simply say to someone, "Hey, it's wrong to kill."
The idea here is that if we discount Christ's authority,
the morality becomes dubious and more easily dismissed.
We have to say "Christ says that it is wrong to kill"
or the message becomes defunct somehow. This is the
most ridiculous notion I have ever heard. The film
spends 90 minutes repeating this idea. It's foolish.
This isn't so much a religious film or even a Christian
film; it is dogmatic anti-secular-humanism rhetoric.
MacLeod plays the inventor, also
a religious scholar, who sends the protagonist, played
by D. David Moran, from the 1890's to modern day America.
It is he who objects to Moran's character's writings.
Macleod's inventor has, of course, time traveled himself.
He has already visited modern day America. He knows
how Godless and immoral the world has become. The
film never discusses the inherent problems in a script
that suggests that if God exists, he would allow certain
men to time travel. This is only hinted at in discussions
in the scholar's classrooms where they suggest that
all science only proves what the Bible already purports
as truth. (The logic of some of this can make your
head spin). The film also ends with a ludicrous metaphoric
scene that is so ham-handed it will make some laugh.
I thought it was clever but made a ridiculous point.
The plot of the film is still intriguing,
even if the point it is trying to make is rather pointless
from a secular standpoint. My favorite "Star Trek"
film has always been the one where they come back
to modern-day America and I guess I enjoy "time travel"
movies. Still, the staid and caricaturish upright
scholar played by Moran often seems like a silly Christian
Chicken Little running around crying the sky is falling.
After a while, we get bored with his perpetual shock
of how immoral and crude the modern world is.
Yet he can have some pretty nice
moments here and there. The scenes with Paul Rodriguez
are actually quite nice and the resolution of this
relationship almost works to nail the theme of the
film on the head. I guess I was lucky in that I was
brought up in a religious family. I went to a Methodist
church religiously (hehe) with my parents when I was
a small child and went to a Baptist church as a teenager
with some neighbor kids. I know the stories of Jesus
and I believe that I basically understand the concept
that Jesus died for our sins. Well, I comprehend them
as well as a layman can. His story suggests that all
men are sinners and yet all of us can be redeemed
as sinners if we simply accept him into our hearts
and minds. However, like Orwell's Big Brother is objectified
as pure evil when blindly followed, Jesus often becomes
objectified as pure goodness when it is said that
he must be "loved" in the same manner. I do not believe
that God, or whatever one might name him, would create
man and give him free will and then demand his blind
obedience. God expects us to learn and, obviously,
in order to learn, one must sin. The idea is this:
Jesus died so that we could understand that we can
all be forgiven and that we can all be cleansed of
our sins. The idea is that our pasts can be forgiven
once we simply accept love into our hearts for one
and other and attempt henceforth to live pure, sinless,
loving, caring lives. Jesus doesn't want us to accept
him into our hearts because "he said so." Jesus wants
us to live and learn and then come to comprehend and
desire his love and acceptance.
Okay - see how complex it gets!
There's more to it than that. It cannot be explained
in a few well-chosen words. You can't explain the
understanding of accepting Jesus into your heart in
one sentence. This film tries to explain it when the
scholar speaks with Rodriguez about religion. Rodriguez's
character accepts it a bit too easily. (In other words,
the writer here really isn't trying to hard). His
conversion is rather hard to swallow. Yet the two
actors make it nearly believable, no matter how ham-handedly
it is written. I will say this: It is nice that Rodriguez's
character is just a simple and nice guy. He isn't
some villain that becomes interested in religion and
has some huge revelation and conversion. The film
presents him as a normal guy who just needs to know
more about Jesus in order to understand how he can
be saved and this reenforces the film's theme. Of
course, one has to believe that someone who is simply
ignorant of Jesus cannot go to heaven and that, in
my opinion, is pure hogwash.
A sub-theme of the film should also
be discussed and that is its vehement hatred of Hollywood.
This film has several scenes where modern entertainment
is treated as vile, perverted and immoral. Hollywood
is even personified in the character of a librarian
who used to work in the industry. Her bemoaning of
the emptiness of the industry is pointless. And the
plot-points where the protag goes to a modern movie
theater and sees modern television and is abhorred
by them is really over-the-top. This film even goes
so far as to suggest that modern entertainment, like
film and television, is a trick by the devil to lead
humans away from God and Jesus. In this film's opinion,
it is not goodness and kindness that the devil hates,
it is God and Jesus. The devil pretty much invented
secular humanism according to the writer/director
Rich Christiano, the way I understand what he is saying
here.
(Oh my goodness, I didn't even take
the time to discuss the slap in the face that this
film delivers to the modern church - which it portrays
as nothing more than a country club. And I didn't
discuss the ridiculous plot line that has some church
goers, who are also amateur detectives, trailing the
protag because they think he is a con man or something.
This film certainly has a lot going on for a piece
that has one simple and pointless message).
The acting in the film is really
bad. MacLeod does an okay job and Hal Linden (TV's
"Barney Miller") also does fair. But Moran is as wooden
and dull as they come. His opening performance in
the film, when it is set in 1890, is horrible. And,
Jesus, it takes 30 minutes for him to time travel
at all. (The set-up here is hopelessly elongated).
At least in the modern day sequences, Moran's wooden
acting can be taken as his characters supposed stodginess
and un-hipness since he is supposedly from 1890.
The marketing behind "Time Changer"
got my butt in the seat, but its message was completely
lost on me. (Albeit, as you can tell from the length
of this review, it made me think). I suppose the film
has some good moments where it actually presents a
theme and then backs that theme up with plot points
that enunciate it. But it seems so pointless in a
world where there is so much anger and hatred to worry
about converting people to Christianity. To say that
kindness and goodness is not enough is hopelessly
arrogant and dim-witted.
One final thought: It is nice to
note that I watched the entire film and never once
thought about the idea that I am a gay man and most
modern churches are not interested in having me attend
(unless I want to change, revoke, ignore or negate
my sexuality). This film never once made me feel as
if its message were not for me. I'll give it that.
But this pointless message, that
humans will not go to heaven simply if they are good,
is tired and wrong. By suggesting this and then attempting
to qualify it with a story, the filmmakers become
mouthpieces for the modern church. In my mind, this
is a last ditch effort of a dying institution trying
to somehow create a reason for its existence. Granted,
in doing this it picks some rather obvious villains:
Hollywood and secular humanism.
Be kind. Be good. Be gentle. Be
loving. And God or Jesus (or whatever you want to
call It) will see you. That is how you accept Jesus
into your heart in my book. Whether you know his name
and his story or not, if you live a loving life, He
will accept you into HIS heart. I doubt He is truly
all that concerned with whether or not you go to church
and whether or not you go to secular movies.
Note:
Also with Jennifer O'Neill, and
Richard Riehle.
Viewed in Austin in November, 2002.
