Time After TimeAn unexpectedly charming time-travel saga in which Malcolm McDowell stars as late 19th century inventor and writer HG Wells. Among his friends is John Lesley Stevenson (Warner), who just happens to be Jack the Ripper.
When the police track the Ripper to Wells' house, the murderer uses the writer's time machine to escape through time. The time machine automatically returns to Wells' time, so he is able to use it to spring forward to late 1970s San Francisco in pursuit.
The usual clichés are present as 19th-century Wells tries to get to grips with modern society, at the same time sparking up a romance with a bank-teller (Steenburgen) but they're handled in inventive and gently comic fashion. The detective work of the genteel, anachronistic Wells makes for an intriguing take on the murder mystery, which is handled atospherically despite the silliness. Warner is splendid as Jack the Ripper, thoroughly at home in a more violent modern society. A pleasing little time-waster.
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