Going back in time and changing something had become a popular go-to storyline in the sci-fi genre for filmmakers by the 90s, especially after the phenomenal success of Back to the Future. It was a matter of how interesting you could make the plot to win the viewer’s vote. David Twohy’s Timescape (1992) can be rated as fairly successful in getting there.
The story starts as a mystery for the protagonist Ben Wilson (Jeff Daniels), a widower raising a young daughter Hillary (Ariana Richards), when a group of strange-acting travelers come to stay at his inn. Suspecting that they may be aliens in human form, Wilson watches them and learns that the strangers are visiting for a very particular purpose, one that may indicate the impending death of his daughter. What is he going to do to escape this disaster?
Also released as Grand Tour: Disaster in Time on video, Timescape brings an interesting plot to the screen within the time travel niche of sci-fi cinema. Wilson’s character, played well by Daniels, is very relatable as an average Joe (or average Ben) who will run to the other end of the universe and back to save his daughter while he lives with the trauma of losing his wife to an accident.
This movie has some good lines for Wilson’s character and an ending that doesn’t disappoint. It is worth watching also for its break from many other sci-fi movies where aliens are pit against humans in an alien-invasion story, which Timescape is certainly not. Instead the story offers a more hopeful take on the temporal paradox. With a PG 13 rating, it is a movie you can watch with young members of your family.
