The Time Shifters (1999)

(There are Spoilers) Interesting take on time travel involving this future travel agency that has its clients travel back in time to witness major disasters and at the same time not ultimately become a part, by getting killed, in them.Tabloid newspaper reporter Tom Merrick, Casper Van Dein, checking out his fellow investigative reporter's Liz Wintern's, Catherine Bell, computer finds this strange paradox in, official at the time news photos, the same person being at the scene of three different disasters, the Titanic the Hindenburg and Hurricane Hugo, within a time span of some ninety years! And on top of all that the mystery man Murray Trevor, Julian Richings, didn't seem to age a day!You can just imagine what Tom thought when he spotted this same Murray Trevor on his flight from Chicago to Washington D.C! He just knew that something terrible was about to happen and, on a hunch, then prevented it from happening: A major mid-air collision that was to take the lives of over 300 people!As he soon finds out Tom by preventing the collision from happening change the course of future event that resulted in the destruction, by someone on the plane surviving, of all of Southern California! What's even more shocking is that Tom himself was supposed to have been killed in a major warehouse fire some time ago but it was Trevor, who was there to enjoy the action, who accidentally prevented that from happening!The film has the head of the future time travel agency Grifasi, Martin Sheen, send two of his clean up employees or goons, in seeing that time marches on unperturbed, Cortez & Felder, Thereas Saldana & Peter Outerbridge, to make sure that Tom doesn't prevent any more major disasters from happening. The theory is, in future knowledge, if they don't happen in the past they'll sure as hell happen in the future! The future that Crifasi Cortez and Felder are living in!Very hard to follow at times with Tom & Co. going back and forth in time, with this device called the Santza Displacer, preventing as well as trying, in the case of Cortez & Felder, to encourage future deserters to happen all around the city of Chicago. The big pay-off is the forthcoming destruction of the Copps Sports Colosseum that was to cause the death of over 11,000 people. Two of them being Tom's ex-wife Jen, Deborah Odell, and nine year old son Kevin, Marc Donato!You just got to take things as they come, and not seriously, in "Thrill Seekers" knowing that with everything out of whack, in the time space continuum, you can't expect any logic in what's happening on screen. You do get an eyeful of top flight, for a made for TV movie, action scenes as well as people getting killed and, because of the time travel aspect of the film, coming back to life which more then makes up for the films hooky storyline. You also get an eyeful of actress Catherine Bell who when she lets her hair down and takes off her glasses, as well as puts on a tight fitting sweater, rivals the fiery action scenes, which she's soon to become a part of, in the film.

When you buy as many DVDs off the dollar rack at Wal-Mart as I do, you tend to watch such films with extremely lowered expectations. Occasionally one film rises above what I'd expect from a mere "dollar DVD" and THRILL SEEKERS (sounds like a title for a porn film, doesn't it? It's also known as THE TIME SHIFTERS, if anybody cares) is one such movie. THRILL SEEKERS has an interesting concept and a decent script but unfortunately becomes a victim of the low budget constraints placed upon it by its made-for-TV origins. THRILL SEEKERS stars Casper Van Dien (of "Starship Troopers" fame, who is unfortunately one of the most wooden actors of his generation) as a formerly ratings-hungry TV reporter who left his job in disgrace after his insistence on getting "one more shot" during a spectacular warehouse fire got his camera crew killed. Desperate for work, he takes a job as a reporter for a sleazy "Weekly World News" style tabloid newspaper and is given an assignment to write a story on famous disasters throughout history. While researching archived photographs of such catastrophes as the Titanic sinking and the Hindenburg explosion, he notices the same black-suited man in each photograph, and he doesn't appear to have aged a day even though the events took place years apart. His editor sends him on a plane to Washington to do more research at the Library of Congress, and it just so happens that the same black-suited guy is on his plane. (Don'tcha just love coincidences like that?) He accosts the stranger and finds out he's a "Thrill Seeker," a time traveller from the future who is taking a "tour" of famous disasters. His presence on this plane, of course, means that it's doomed to crash, so Van Dien hijacks the plane just in time to avoid a mid-air collision (thanks to a clip borrowed from the film "Turbulence," according to the end credits). The black-suited guy is nowhere to be found when the plane lands, but Van Dien has stolen his computerized "tour itinerary" book which tells him the next disaster is going to be a subway crash in Chicago. Escaping from the local police and with his research assistant from the newspaper (played by Catherine Bell of "JAG") in tow, he races to stop the "Thrill Seeker" before the crash can happen. Unfortunately, the "tour company" in the future is now threatened since they've been discovered (not to mention, Van Dien's halting of the air crash has "altered the time line" of course), so two assassins (who look like they borrowed their outfits from a "Matrix" yard sale) are sent back to try and eliminate him before he can screw up the future any further. Confused yet? The rest of the film is basically one chase scene after another, as Van Dien and Bell avoid both the police and the hired killers while trying to reach the final disaster on the Thrill Seeker's itinerary, a catastrophic fire at an arena during a hockey game. (Some additional tension is added for Van Dien's character by placing his ex-wife and young son at the game.) I wont' tell you how it all turns out but I will say that THRILL SEEKERS kept my interest even though trying to keep up with the constant "timeline changes" and how they affected the characters did become a bit of a headache after a while. I'm sure that more hardcore sci-fi fans would find a lot to pick apart in THRILL SEEKERS, and I'm surprised that I liked it as much as I did, but for a buck I can't complain, can I? THRILL SEEKERS turned out to be an unexpected treat.

When examining photos of some of the great disasters of the 20th century, a investigative reporter discovers a man who appears in several of the disasters--separated by decades, yet seemingly not aging a day. So he begins to investigate. When he chances upon the same man on a plane flight, things start happening. Unfortunately, this promising sci-fi idea quickly dissolves into a disappointing bore, thanks in great part to the wooden and dull acting of Casper Van Dien. Apparently he thought this was a photo shoot and never engaged the acting gear. The beautiful Catherine Bell is wasted as the love interest. Somewhere in here there's a pretty good idea, but its not worth watching the movie to dig it out.

I'll watch any time travel movie once. This one I purchased and have watched several times and will again and again. If you've seen "Grand Tour, Disaster In Time" then you'll see the similarities of why people are traveling through time here. But that's where the similarities end. Almost a constant action movie. Good acting. Every actor gave their character a unique personality. There was also a fun interpretation of time changing in the future as it was being changed in the past. The goal of the FUTURE hunters conflicted with Casper's because they were trying to keep their future world intact. But you also feel for Casper's character trying to save lives in his world (the past). The pyrotechnics were VERY good, as were the time jumps. The story's ending wasn't ruined by being to perfect. Sure, Casper gets the girl, and we have to love that, but it left a realistic taste at the end.