IMDb metadata is 1 hour and 22 minutes, rated 5.1 from 1701 cinemitizens.
Verdict: They left home with the AMEX card!
In 1964 three whitebread scientists are reading dials and shouting for more or less power. They cannot seem to make up their minds. Are they wearing the white-coats to keep time dust off their clothes? Meanwhile: Levers are levered. Switches are switched. Dials are dialed. And then …
It is the year 2071!
The Earth is a wasteland! The Republican ascendancy must have had its way. The advance of human knowledge has stopped.
The three scientists and comic relief step through the time portal which promptly collapses behind them stranding the travellers without visas. They are set upon by vestigial Trumpettes, crippled and deformed, i.e., unchanged: slavering, hunched, overweight, waddling… Yikes.
In one notable early scene two of these savage Trumpettes attack the lady scientist, who thinks fast and sprays them with a fire extinguisher and that drives them off. Hooray! She does not scream, faint, go pale, or make coffee, but does some quick lateral thinking and takes decisive action. How rare is that for a woman in a creature feature in 1964? Very. Moreover, at no time does anyone talk about the contradiction of a women being a scientist. Take a bow, scriptwriter!
The illegal immigrant time travelers without visas take refuge in a cave where they find the few remaining Mole Hillaries underground. The Moles confirm the Republican armageddon which sent Evangelicals and most everyone else to their rewards. The few survivors are the Moloch Trumpettes on the surface and Eloi Hillaries underground, thus reversing H.G. Wells.
John Hoyt in the powder-blue regalia is a fine actor totally wasted in this role as the visa denier.
The Mole Hillaries plan to relocate to Alpha Centura where a Democratic majority is assured! They are hard at work on a spaceship and welcome additional white-coated scientific help. Meanwhile, they depend on Androids to defend them from the Trumpettes. So far all of this has been pretty snappy.
But now we hear much about the Androids, but when you have seen one droid, you have seen them all.
The story bogs down to an arthritic snail’s pace with expositions of spaceflight, Alpha Centura, 3D printing, and the androids supplemented with comic irritation. Tedious with a capital ‘T’ and it goes on and on. The fraternity brothers got their Zs in Act II.
These four newcomers irritate some of the Hillaries. Jealously, ambition, KPIs rear their ugly heads. With a little spreadsheet magic one sore-headed Hillary proves she won the election, no, whoops, he proves that the four strangers cannot fit onto the Alpha Centura rocket and will to stay behind and play with the Molochs. Nice, not. Help us build the rocket, yes; ride in it, no. Sounds like a familiar management move. ‘You do the work and I take the credit’ is a chapter in the McKinsey Managers Manual.
Then in the middle of another exposition, the Trumpette Molochs attack! What a relief! Much running around. Sirens sound. Lights flash. The fraternity brothers gained consciousness.
The intruder is neither a registered Republican nor a Democrat, but a human being! There is an argument about exterminating him. The lady scientist gets all compassionate and saves him. Big deal! We never see or hear of him again. He fell through a typo in the screenplay. ‘Did he get on the rocket, or not,’ asked the fraternity brothers? Good question.
Though engaged in a race against time to get to Alpha Centura (before it closes), and in a war to the death with the Trumpette Molochs, the Hillaries take time out for sunlamp bathing, arm wrestllng, and trysts in the cavelight. We see semi-clad women lounging around a spa talking about the population explosion that will follow resettlement on New Earth around Alpha Centura. Get it! The fraternity brothers sniggered.
Then the Trumpettes attack in force and in the confusion the time travelers return to 1964 to vote against Barry Goldwater. However once there they find themselves motionless. Comic irritation does his stuff. This paradox is an interesting twist. Back-up: Denied seats on the rocket, they used their iPhones to telephone back to 1964.
However, they cannot reintegrate into 1964 because the IOS updates are inconsistent. What is to become of them? [‘Who cares,’ asked the fraternity brothers?] But the Eloi have a change of heart and somehow, ex cathedra screenplay, manage to get to 1964 to offer them a place on the rocket after all. A happy ending is thus assured. Who they threw off to make room is left unsaid. Pretty sure that unregistered human being did not make it.
The story is incoherent. Though there are many incidents, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. The denouement is not the result of anything that preceded it. It just happens. Kind of like life.
The writer and director Ib Melchoir other achievement was ‘Reptilicus’ (1961). Enuf said.
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