I’m okay with movies that feature time travel in them. Avengers: Endgame is not a time-travel movie, but it does feature people bopping back and forth along multiple timelines. Cool, nothing wrong with that. Movies specifically about time travel, though, tend to be very much a mixed bag. I’m talking more about films that specifically center around the concept of what time travel means and how it affects the characters. 

Sometimes they’re great. All right-thinking people can agree that Back to the Future is a masterpiece, as is 12 Monkeys. The little seen Retroactive is excellent, as is Looper, as is The Terminator, as is Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Other times, though, they’re anti-great. A Sound of Thunder is very bad. As is Terminator: Genisys. As is Timeline. 

I think when filmmakers lean hard into chronal shenanigans, they run a serious risk. While time travel is cool conceptually, if the human and emotional elements aren’t equally represented, you can either end up with something unbearably sappy or something annoyingly gimmicky. Where does that leave us with the sci-fi comedy Tim Travers and the Time Travelers Paradox, then? It’s definitely gimmicky, yet underneath that is real cleverness and a beating heart.

We’re introduced to Tim Travers (Samuel Dunning), a scientist who isn’t mad, per se, but you can see madness from where he is. On the one hand, he seems to be doing well considering he owns a network of warehouses stuffed to the brim with wild-ass scientific equipment and pilfered plutonium. He also seems to be well enough renowned that he’s invited onto a podcast to discuss his latest project, one hosted by the Alex Jones-esque James Bunratty (Joel McHale).

The subject of the podcast segment is if time travel is possible, and of course it is. Tim has invented a time machine, a real, honest-to-God gigantic construct that can bend and break the timestream. It’s kind of a big deal, and Tim knows extensive testing is needed. He begins by traveling one minute into the past and murdering his “younger” self. The testing, if you can call it that, works. The unexpected factor is that Tim now has to deal with a bunch of Tim Travers who are inconveniently dead, but whatever. Science!

Tim quickly learns that each discovery with his time machine leads to knottier questions. He needs help, but he can only really trust himself. The logical choice is for him to grab different versions of himself through the timeline to help divide up labor. Only that becomes complicated. Tim’s personal life also gets thorny when he goes on a date with Delilah, Bunratty’s podcast producer. She’s not prepared for Tim’s misanthropy and the chaos that spreads in his wake. Trust me, there’s a lot of chaos! Tim will have to also deal with the assassin Helter (Stimson Snead) working on behalf of the mysterious Kingmaker, as well as the ruthless specialist Royce (Danny Trejo). Maybe it’ll be all worth it, if Tim can just get to the end of time so he can tell God to screw himself.

Director Stimson Snead seems to have, despite a limited budget, made exactly the movie he initially envisioned. He’s expanded things from the short he originally made a few years ago, and proved himself to be an extremely clever filmmaker. For example, the short also features numerous versions of Tim interacting physically. Instead of using split-screen visual effects, which tend to make things look two-dimensional, Snead utilized body doubles. Smart solutions like that allow Snead to show us some of the ridiculous, disturbing, and poignant implications of time travel. He also knows that with timey-wimey stuff, a little goes a long way, which is why he’s kept the film to a fleet ninety-five minutes.

Snead’s screenplay is enormously ambitious, and judging by what he’s done, I think it sort of works. The comedy is certainly there, and moments like the disastrous date Tim and Delilah go on, or a group of Tims deciding to stop working to have an impromptu orgy, show us that Snead loves pushing these concepts to the most ridiculous possible place.* When black holes, the possibility that existence is a simulation, and the motivations of an alleged Supreme Being are also introduced, the script loses focus. The irony is that time travel and the unraveling of the universe take up so much space, while the lesson Tim learns about who he can and should be as a person is shoved to the background.

It’s a bit strange to discuss the cast when Samuel Dunning appears in nearly every scene, and often in multiple versions of himself. It’s a very strong series of performances, since Dunning initially shows Tim to be frighteningly intelligent, bitter, and lonely. As new Tim variants arrive, Dunning portrays some as cowardly, others romantic, and others as helpful. By doing that, we’re able to tell through his body language and vocal intonations which Tim is which. Joel McHale, Danny Trejo, and Keith David show up for extended cameos, and they never overstay their welcomes. I liked Felicia Day’s snide Delilah, and her prickly chemistry with Dunning made me wish she had more screen time.

Tim Travers and the Time Travelers Paradox is sophisticated, crude, sleek, occasionally plodding, and ridiculously ambitious. Just like the title says, the movie itself is a paradox. I’ll take that, because as gimmicky as it gets, it always wants to push past for something weirder and greater. I don’t know if you’ll like this movie, but I promise you won’t forget it.

*Snead seems to have done his research about how theoretical time travel would function. Good for him, because that accuracy makes everything funnier.

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.