31 Days of Halloween: Timequest – a chance to rewrite history (2000)
Timequest – Bruce Campbell – Courtesy of Destination Earth LLC
It’s Day 14 of 1428 Elm’s 31 Days of Halloween, and today we’re looking at the Bruce Campbell sci-fi flick directed by Robert Dyke, the 2000 Timequest.
Timequest poses this old chestnut of a question. What if you could change the future to save someone’s life? Would you do it?
“Did today really happen?” – Jacqueline Kennedy
If I Could Change the World
Timequest has a unique premise. Granted, the concept behind the story is ancient but it is still an interesting question to entertain. If you had the ability to go back in time and eradicate a mistake or alter the future, would you?
Anyone who watches science fiction knows the rule. You can’t change the past because if you do, there will be repercussions. Let me tell you, if I could, I would find a TARDIS or some other form of alternate reality transportation and I would redo 1990.
That is neither here or there. While I was involved in the story, I found myself to be thrown for a loop a couple of times with the incessant time changes. One minute, we are in 1979, then without warning we are in the 60s again.
Time Passages
The way I could tell the time change is the bygone era was shot in grey tones. That was helpful. I hope that if time travel ever comes to pass that we have that locked down because if we are just floating from one decade or century to the next, it will become like a bad acid trip.
This film is about a Time Traveler played by (John Walton of 70s tv show, the Waltons), Ralph Waite. Apparently, this guy decides that he is going to alter history because he wants to save President John F. Kennedy (Victor Slezak) from a tarnished legacy.
Obviously, he is keen on preserving Camelot for future generations. He knows that Kennedy and his brother Robert (Vince Grant) have the ability to lead the United States into a new age of space exploration and mutual cooperation with our Cold War nemesis, Russia.
Men in Black
The film opens on October 18, 1979. A bus full of young men is en route to prison. Suddenly, the driver stops the vehicle when he is confronted by a car in the middle of the road.
Two men in dark suits get out of the car. Immediately, they board the bus and the driver gives them the location of the seat for their target. They approach Raymond Mead (Joseph Murphy).
Clearly, he questions why they want him but in typical G-man speak, they get the meaning across to him that he doesn’t have a choice. They exit the bus only to find themselves waiting for Marine One.
Excuse Me, but Where in the Actual Hell is Bruce Campbell?
Part of the reason, well, okay, MOST of the reason that I tuned into this little adventure was because of Bruce Campbell. I thought by the blurb on the box so to speak that he would be the star of the movie. Then it turned out that Pa Walton was the Time Traveler so I was thinking maybe Bruce has a co-starring role.
Nope! Campbell has a nice little part where he does have screen time but for this 92-minute feature, he has maybe ten to fifteen minutes and then like Keyser Soze he is gone. Let’s just say I was hugely disappointed. Not in his performance but the bait and switch.
It is kind of like falling in love with a Tinder profile and then finding out when you go on the actual date maybe you should have stayed at home and eaten that Haagen Dazs. When we meet up with Bruce he is on the set of a movie which just happens to look like the Oval Office.
Campbell portrays film director William Roberts, an Oliver Stone, controversial “everything is a conspiracy” type of fellow. Roberts is making a flick about the “real” Kennedys. We soon find out that the world we know has been changed.
Bruce Campbell Rewrites History
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Gone are the rumors of torrid love affairs with women such as Marilyn Monroe. Instead, JFK is still happily married to Jackie (Caprice Benedetti) in Hyannis Port and is living a bland life. William is exerting artistic license and is basically turning this biography into some sort of soft core sex show.
What amused me to no end and will thrill Campbell fans everywhere is when he is explaining to his attractive assistant about his vision for the flick, he gets a phone call from John Lennon. Why is this funny to me?
Pretty much anyone that has followed his career, read his books and seen his interviews knows that he doesn’t buy into the Hollywood bullshit routine. Hearing him talk on the phone to “John Lennon” is something to behold.
His character is trying to get them to do a documentary and the Beatles won’t give him the rights. So, he is acting like every stereotype of an annoying film producer and it pays off beautifully. After he hangs up, he tells his assistant that the Beatles never amounted to much.
They had an appearance on the Sullivan show but they never caught on over here in the states. The legendary group as has beens? This new timeline is incredulous.
Getting in the Way Back Machine
After Campbell’s scene, which frankly didn’t last long enough, we are taken back to November 22, 1963. Except this is the time in the hotel room before that fateful motorcade at Dealey Plaza. Instead, we find out that Jackie Kennedy has encountered the Time Traveler and John and Bobby are trying to figure out how to deal with him.
The Time Traveler shows Jackie what will happen to her husband if he goes through with the visit. He also reveals Bobby’s assassination five years later. Stunned, there is not much the trio can say. The evidence is hard to debunk.