Movie review: Don't waste your 'Timecrimes'

Article by: COLIN COVERT , Star Tribune
Updated: December 18, 2008 - 4:22 PM

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Scene from "Timecrimes"

Photo: Magnolia Pictures,

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Opens today: The Spanish stalker movie "Timecrimes" (★ out of four stars, rated R for nudity and violence, in Spanish with English subtitles) is a hash of science fiction, chiller themes and mirthless comedy of errors. Hector (Karra Elejalde), a middle-aged nebbish, lounges in front of his vacation home, scanning the nearby woods through binoculars when he spies a beautiful girl (Barbara Goenaga) stripping off her clothes.

When he moves in for a closer look, he's attacked by a man with a bandaged face, and flees in panic to a nearby laboratory. The sole staff member on duty is a fidgety young scientist (the film's writer/director Nacho Vigalondo) who is eager to get Hector to step into an ominous high-tech pressure cooker.

What happens next sends our protagonist down a rabbit hole of temporal anomalies with the result that he ends up playing an unexpected role in his own earlier experiences, sometimes with a tickle, sometimes with a stab. The idea isn't bad, and Vigalondo makes the pretzel logic of the situation lucid, but he doesn't have the chops to give the tale the suspense and humor it needs. The real crime here is a movie bilking us out of 88 minutes.