#with this I leave 2023 in real life and conclude the year of 2003 in Michaels filmography

[cosmo-watches-movies]

Timeline (2003)

Plot: American dude joins an archeology team in france because he wants to get at a girl. However his dad dissapears and the team find a note he wrote 600 years ago. They use a newly developed teleporter turned accidental time machine to rescue him.

I’m trying to find the right word for what this movie is. It does what it sets out to do allright, but its not particularly extraordinary or memorable. I think calling it a flick might cut it. Yeah, it’s a time travel/medieval action flick, but in a good way. It’s watchable, okay for a sunday evening, you know what I mean?

As I said in the summary we have the american dude (Chris Johnston, played by Paul Walker) who joined the excavation, and his father (E.A. Johnston, played by Billy Connolly) who dissapeared. The excavation team travel to the place where the scientists accidentally developed a time machine and set out to travel back in time to rescue Chris' father. Included in the rescue team are also Andre Marek (Gerard Butler) and Kate Ericson (Frances O'Connor), who worked at the excavation aswell.

So an amazing thing this movie does is, it tries to be as scientifically logical to an average audience as possible. They explain everything about the timetravel so it makes sense to every averagely educated viewer (i.e me) and I think it’s all around plausible. They did a pretty good job as long as you’re not further educated in quantum physics I think, but I am not so I buy it. If you want to know how they explain it in detail watch the movie, short to say they use a worm hole to travel through time and they even explained how they found out where and when the wormhole ends and it’s all very clever if you don’t think about it too much. 10 year old me would’ve gone crazy for the science part of all this. I think it’s great.

Aaaaanyway, just putting this here. If you already lost someone in the past and don’t quite know how all this wormhole stuff really works, is it that clever to send a whole team of people into a medieval warzone to try and save him? I don’t know, but I think it’s gonna be reaaallly hard to find an insurance that covers this situation.

As it turns out that out of all the possible places and all possible moments in the history of the entire universe, the wormhole, just so happens to end in Castlegard in 1357, which is a for human archeologists very convenient time and place. Of course this is the site where the earlier excavations took place and that was the initial reason the scientist called for Johnston to help. Promptly loosing him in the past quickly after.

“But Cosmo,…” I hear you ask, “where is Michael in all of this?” Oh, my sweet friend I am getting there very soon, just you wait. It will be worth it believe me.

First tho we have to get our team to the past, of course they need a way back aswell, so they get a little pendant each, that when pushed sends all of them back to the future (lol) at the same time.

In a very painful process they travel 600 years to the past and arrive in Dordogne, France. Oh, by the way, they took only one (1) guy who speaks french. His name is François. (I’m crying, 100% effort on the scientific explanations, 0% on naming their characters)

So now we have a group of english passing people and one french passing guy in a place where a french castle is occupied by the English. Fun times will not be had. And we see this immeadiatly because the two security men they took with them get shot with arrows immediately. One of who presses their mark and while dying gets transported to the future. But oh no he had a granade and it goes off in the lab so the time machine is now in shambles.

In the past our team flees to the french camps but get captured by the English. And this is where Michael as Lord Oliver de Vannes has his big entry. Somehow…It takes almost 40 minutes before we meet his character, which is fine.

He is the main villain, but only technichally so, because he exsits mainly to give the opposing English force a headfigure. He doesn’t really get a big introduction, I assume because at this point the audience already knows what the deal is and that the English are the enemy. Exposition has been delivered, Oliver just gives them a main target to oppose. In the first scene he’s in we just see him amids swordfight training with his fellow men and then be an ass towards the protagonists and their team. That’s basically all he does and is. This is not one of Michaels deepest roles, but I’ve found him very entertaining nonetheless, mainly because some of his line deliveries just crack me up. I can’t even say what it is, it’s just funny to me. Obviously I can’t really show this here, I'll give you one example later, just watch the movie and see for yourself. Maybe it’s on purpose I don’t know. Maybe it's me.

Let’s take a closer look at the scenes he’s in, there aren’t that many. (I think he has less screen time than Miles had, even though he’s the villain for the main storyline of the movie)

As I said we meet Lord Oliver during a training swordfight. They use these funky swords with yarn around them and tassles at the tips, I love them, I want one. Now, is the fighting they do realistic? I don’t fucking know and I don’t really care, it looks cool.

I’m a big fan of this move especially:

Again, 10 year old me would’ve loved this

The hero team are brought to the place where the English are currently training (or just showing off their coolest tricks idk) and after proving he’s the most awesomest and strongest dude in the room Oliver introduces himself to them and of course wants to know who they are. Upon learning that they are scottish he decides to be an ablsolute prick about this whole situation.

He does some more awesome(tm) sword moves and afterwards asks them if they know “the old scottish man”. Chris then explains that the old man is a magister and they where several days behind him and didn’t know that they where following him. After Chris is done however Oliver decides he doesn’t give a shit about that and asks about the tall young man (oh no, we as the audience think, thats Farncios)

Now the dynamic in the room shifts, as the only conclusion the English can make now, is that he’s a spy. Oliver could have Francois killed at the spot, but he’s an ass, so he decides to humiliate him first.

Poor guy :(

In another ass move Oliver has the poor guy executed and thus the epic story of Francois, the frenchman comes to an end...

Then the hero team are shoved into the attic, where they find Chris’ dad who tells them that he promised Oliver Greek fire (an incedairy weapon), so he wouldn’t be killed on the spot. We shortly see Oliver again in a short scene where he has small quarrel with a young french woman, who’s absolutely not having any of it:

If you ever wanted to see Michael Sheen actually get slapped in the face, there you go. I’m not joking she really slapped him. You can see his curls bounce upon impact and if you watch the scene it sounds…just ouch

The next part of the movie is them escaping, being split up because Merrick saves the french girl.

Also we learn that the french girl is Lady Claire, who is intregral to the history of this place, because the English killed her, which rallied the French so they could win the battle. But Marek already fell for her so that’s terrible news for him. I would’ve skipped explaining this, but it will be important later.

(For some reason the plot of this movie is really complex. I have to give it to them, this film is 2 hours long and there is literally zero filler. I’m sorry if I skipped some important storybeats, but I don’t want to transcribe the whole movie in detail for a character who’s in like four small scenes)

In two different raids first Chris Dad and then Claire and Merrick get recaptured.

The English assume a defensive position at castle La Roque and the french position themselves right in front of it. While both sides prepare for battle Chris and Kate try to find a secret entry into the castle to save his dad again.

The battle starts, reenter Oliver. LMAO I love this, the castle is being attacked by catapults flinging huge flaming stoneballs into the walls and Oliver DOES NOT MOVE A MUSCLE!

(F’kin Dark Lord coded mf)

The English answer with their first Greek fire spear thingy, but at first it seems very dissapointing. Oliver is not impressed…

But then the French try to extinguish the fire with water and that ignites it further. Job well done Lord Oliver is happy. The battle goes back and forth as one would expect with archers and fire and everything. (Fucking love these shots, again, don’t know how accurate, but they look great)

Battle commences. I don’t know why, but Oliver giving the battle commands brings me great joy. He commands a row of night arrows to be shot after the fired ones which kills a whole lot of frenchmen, he’s quite pleased with himself.

>:) < literally him

Chris and Kate get stuck in a tunnel that is supposed to lead them inside the castle.

Meanwhile the French earn two good chances, first they learn of the tunnel that leads into the castle and send a troup to investigate and then they hit the front gate of the castle with one of their trebouches (very lucky hit)

This leads to the best line of the movie imo:

Delivery on point, this line is part of a balanched breakfast

We shortly see the scientists in the future desperately trying to fix the transporter. There is a subplot with one of them kinda giving up and rebelling, but honestly idgaf, I think they added this just to raise suspense. There would be nothing really missing if they hadn’t added this.

In an attempt to have the French surrender Lord Oliver puts up Claire to be hanged right in front of them if they don’t lay down their weapons. Merrick sees this and decides to confront Oliver in an attempt to stop him by threatening to blow up the whole arsenal. This almost works, but Olivers second in command thinks he sees through this apparent bluff and stops him from falling for it. But it wasn’t a bluff. Merrick throws his torch in the arsenal, causing a huge explosionthat throws everyone wildly around the castle. The french cheer and Chris and Kate now have a free entryway to the castle, so do the french, they storm in from the outside and inside. Arrows and close combat.

Here’s where my favourite action shot is in this movie:

Watch this a couple of times, what was supposed to happen here? First he swings the sword, unfortunately very obviously, miles in front of this guys head and then the dude falls like he had a rug pulled from under him? How? What? And the sound they played! You can’t hear it, but it’s not a *swoosh-klonk-aaaargh*, like as if he's actually hit with a blow that could swipe him off his feet, it’s just a tiny *bink* and then he dramatically throws himself to the ground. Great action shot, I love it.

Marek runs to get Claire free while the french leader fights Oliver. Now those of us who payed attention earlier, know that Oliver is really, really good at swordfighting, so he will be very hard to beat. I live for this scene, Oliver is giving it all, fighting multiple people back to back, not showing any weakness. He has the french leader on the ground and raises his sword for the final strike, but Chris slides into his legs and throws him to the ground. They scuffle and Oliver throws Chris to the side. Chris scuttles away, Oliver gets up quickly and follows him menacingly. Chris is cornered but finds a battle axe (?) and tries to stab his opponent. This plan fails, Chris already sees his end coming, again Oliver raises his sword, but he is stopped by the frenchman, who doesn’t hesitate, he grabs Oliver and stabs him (right in the heart I assume). Oliver collapses and, triumphantly, his killer states:

Fuck yeah, If I have to see a character who’s played by my favorite actor die, this is THE ONLY WAY!!!

Yadda, yadda, yadda, the French win the battle, our heros survive. Chris, his dad and Kate get back to the future and Marek decides to stay with Claire.

The scientist, who rebelled is accidentally transported back to the past and is immeadiately stabbed or (beheaded for all I know) by an english rider.

The protagonists discover a message Marek and Claire left before they died and all is well. (Exept for the four innocent people of the excavation project who died on this adventure, they are dead)

Yay, fun, enjoyment, happy times, this movie is entertaining.

I think this movie is allright, the writing is solid enough and they put some great effort into the action scenes. So why did it bomb at the box office? Well… this movie was kind of doomed upon release. This film released to theatre 26th of November 2003. And guess what film released just one week later!?! Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King! (!!!)

I’m so sorry they had no chance. This is so damn sad, but also so fucking funny. Generally there is absolutely nothing wrong with it this film. Maybe, if it had been made like ten years earlier it would’ve been a great success? But not in 2003, unfortunately.

Back to our main focus though: I LIVE whenever I see Michael in an action scene! I can’t even explain the excitement these scenes cause me. I don’t even care if he wins or looses a fight as long as he’s in it. You can see that he gives his all in these scenes and it’s very captivating. I was indeed shouting at my TV because I was so in it. (If you can you should avoid watching any kind of Sheen movie with me in one room, because I will be very obnoxious about everything he does. Who would've guessed?)

All in all, there is not that much depth to Lord Oliver as a character I think? As I said he’s pretty much just a personified version of a general opponent. More of an obstacle than a character.

He’s also barely in this movie. He has like ten lines, the (great) fighting scenes and then he’s killed. All of this is fine, he serves his purpose very well and once again Michael gets everything out of this character that he can I think. It’s just that beyond him being the obstacle for the heroes, there isn’t much else. To me he’s memorable enough but he’s not very deep.

I’d like to point out again that I find it very funny that Oliver is an asshole just for the heck of it. I mean of course he is, he’s the villain. As flat as he’s written, for the story he accomplishes what he’s needs to. But I sincerely hope I wasn’t supposed to take him seriously, because I just can’t. I don’t know what it is about him but he’s so cartoony that I can’t help but find him hilarious at times. The first time I watched this film I was very much in the story, don’t get me wrong, but on my second watch I kind of lost it. Maybe I’m in too deep with the fandom atp but I can’t find Oliver that threatening anymore. Or it could be that with the way this movie is shot, they managed to make him look kind of small? I know Michael isn’t that small, he’s like average height, but the way he’s framed and when he then always stands next to actors who are taller than him, it makes him look kind of smol. And that goes right against any kind of threat level he built up with his evil demeanor. They got it right in the end fight, when they film him from a bit if a different perspective, but the rest of the movie? He be tiny. (I have not felt this effect in anything else before so I don’t know exactly what’s going on here)

So he had his cool moments, but all in all I’m certainly not scared of him really. I know he could kill me in an instant, but I’d ask him to say something in a scottish accent for me and then die laughing my ass off.

What brings me intense joy aswell is, watching the bts material of this movie, we have Michael explaining how doing action scenes like in this movie is a bit like playing pretend when you’re a kid and that sounds like (as exhausting as it probably is) he has a lot of fun doing stuff like this. You go Michael, live your best life!

That’s it. This movie is allright. If my description intrigued you, I think you’re gonna enjoy the film. Now give me my knights armor and my fake sword I have to go battle one specific englishman and his entourage.

RIP Francois