• Latest
  • Trending
Time Travel Is Dangerous Review

Time Travel Is Dangerous Review: Vintage Shop Heists Meet Cosmic Chaos

Anne Burrell

Chef Anne Burrell Dies at 55; Culinary TV Mainstay Mourned by Fans

44 minutes ago
Jurassic World Rebirth

Johansson and Bailey Lead ‘Jurassic World: Rebirth’ to July 4 Box-Office Showdown

53 minutes ago
Jhaleil Swaby

Jhaleil Swaby Joins ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ as District 1 Tribute

59 minutes ago
Ida Brooke

Twins of Arrakis: ‘Dune 3’ Finds Its Leto II and Ghanima

2 hours ago
The Rose of Versailles Review

The Rose of Versailles Review: One Heroine Can’t Save the Monarchy

Hell Motel Review

Hell Motel Review: Checking In, But Checking Out Early

FBC: Firebreak Review

FBC: Firebreak Review: Corporate Chaos and Cooperative Action

In Cold Light Review

In Cold Light Review: A Fever Dream in Neon and Dust

Pop the Balloon Live Review 1

Pop the Balloon Live Review: Netflix’s Glossy, Empty Remake

K.O. Review

K.O. Review: This Heavyweight Contender Lands Solid, If Predictable, Blows

28 Years Later

Sony Wows CineEurope With 28-Minute Zombie Preview and Aronofsky Heist Clip

11 hours ago
Rebel Wilson

Rebel Wilson Details Blood-Soaked Set Accident Ahead of Bride Hard Release

11 hours ago
  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Gazettely Review Guidelines
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
GAZETTELY
  • Home
  • Movie and TV News
    Anne Burrell

    Chef Anne Burrell Dies at 55; Culinary TV Mainstay Mourned by Fans

    Jurassic World Rebirth

    Johansson and Bailey Lead ‘Jurassic World: Rebirth’ to July 4 Box-Office Showdown

    Jhaleil Swaby

    Jhaleil Swaby Joins ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ as District 1 Tribute

    Ida Brooke

    Twins of Arrakis: ‘Dune 3’ Finds Its Leto II and Ghanima

    28 Years Later

    Sony Wows CineEurope With 28-Minute Zombie Preview and Aronofsky Heist Clip

    Rebel Wilson

    Rebel Wilson Details Blood-Soaked Set Accident Ahead of Bride Hard Release

    James Gunn

    Gunn Dismisses Director Rumors Swirling Around DC’s New Batman Film

    Simone Ashley

    Kosinski Explains Simone Ashley’s Vanishing Act in F1

    How to Train Your Dragon

    Dragons Breathe Fire into U.K. Box Office with £11.4 M Launch

  • Movie and TV Reviews
    The Rose of Versailles Review

    The Rose of Versailles Review: One Heroine Can’t Save the Monarchy

    Hell Motel Review

    Hell Motel Review: Checking In, But Checking Out Early

    In Cold Light Review

    In Cold Light Review: A Fever Dream in Neon and Dust

    Pop the Balloon Live Review 1

    Pop the Balloon Live Review: Netflix’s Glossy, Empty Remake

    K.O. Review

    K.O. Review: This Heavyweight Contender Lands Solid, If Predictable, Blows

    The Chelsea Detective Season 3 Review

    The Chelsea Detective Season 3 Review: The Moral Topography of a Postal Code

    We Girls Review 1

    We Girls Review: Strong Performances in a Shaky Story

    To Barcelona, Forever Review

    To Barcelona, Forever Review: Finding the Golden Ending in Spain

    Wear Whatever the F You Want Review

    Wear Whatever the F You Want Review: Correcting the Fashion Record

  • Game Reviews
    FBC: Firebreak Review

    FBC: Firebreak Review: Corporate Chaos and Cooperative Action

    Date Everything Review 1

    Date Everything! Review: You’ll Never Look at Your Toaster the Same Way

    Lost in Random: The Eternal Die Review

    Lost in Random: The Eternal Die Review: All Style, Less Story

    Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster Review

    Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster Review: A Dialogue With Tradition

    Yakuza 0 Director's Cut Review

    Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut Review: Neon Lights and Brutal Fights

    Trident's Tale Review

    Trident’s Tale Review: Buried Treasure or Fool’s Gold?

    The Siege and the Sandfox Review

    The Siege and the Sandfox Review: A Pixel-Perfect Prison Break

    MindsEye Review

    MindsEye Review: A Beautifully Empty World

    The Alters Review

    The Alters Review: Surviving Your Past

  • The Bests
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Movie and TV News
    Anne Burrell

    Chef Anne Burrell Dies at 55; Culinary TV Mainstay Mourned by Fans

    Jurassic World Rebirth

    Johansson and Bailey Lead ‘Jurassic World: Rebirth’ to July 4 Box-Office Showdown

    Jhaleil Swaby

    Jhaleil Swaby Joins ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ as District 1 Tribute

    Ida Brooke

    Twins of Arrakis: ‘Dune 3’ Finds Its Leto II and Ghanima

    28 Years Later

    Sony Wows CineEurope With 28-Minute Zombie Preview and Aronofsky Heist Clip

    Rebel Wilson

    Rebel Wilson Details Blood-Soaked Set Accident Ahead of Bride Hard Release

    James Gunn

    Gunn Dismisses Director Rumors Swirling Around DC’s New Batman Film

    Simone Ashley

    Kosinski Explains Simone Ashley’s Vanishing Act in F1

    How to Train Your Dragon

    Dragons Breathe Fire into U.K. Box Office with £11.4 M Launch

  • Movie and TV Reviews
    The Rose of Versailles Review

    The Rose of Versailles Review: One Heroine Can’t Save the Monarchy

    Hell Motel Review

    Hell Motel Review: Checking In, But Checking Out Early

    In Cold Light Review

    In Cold Light Review: A Fever Dream in Neon and Dust

    Pop the Balloon Live Review 1

    Pop the Balloon Live Review: Netflix’s Glossy, Empty Remake

    K.O. Review

    K.O. Review: This Heavyweight Contender Lands Solid, If Predictable, Blows

    The Chelsea Detective Season 3 Review

    The Chelsea Detective Season 3 Review: The Moral Topography of a Postal Code

    We Girls Review 1

    We Girls Review: Strong Performances in a Shaky Story

    To Barcelona, Forever Review

    To Barcelona, Forever Review: Finding the Golden Ending in Spain

    Wear Whatever the F You Want Review

    Wear Whatever the F You Want Review: Correcting the Fashion Record

  • Game Reviews
    FBC: Firebreak Review

    FBC: Firebreak Review: Corporate Chaos and Cooperative Action

    Date Everything Review 1

    Date Everything! Review: You’ll Never Look at Your Toaster the Same Way

    Lost in Random: The Eternal Die Review

    Lost in Random: The Eternal Die Review: All Style, Less Story

    Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster Review

    Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster Review: A Dialogue With Tradition

    Yakuza 0 Director's Cut Review

    Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut Review: Neon Lights and Brutal Fights

    Trident's Tale Review

    Trident’s Tale Review: Buried Treasure or Fool’s Gold?

    The Siege and the Sandfox Review

    The Siege and the Sandfox Review: A Pixel-Perfect Prison Break

    MindsEye Review

    MindsEye Review: A Beautifully Empty World

    The Alters Review

    The Alters Review: Surviving Your Past

  • The Bests
No Result
View All Result
GAZETTELY
No Result
View All Result
Time Travel Is Dangerous Review

Descendent Review: Alien Ambiguity Meets Fatherhood Angst

From Crime Dramas to Football Docs Netflix Boosts Brazilian Content

Home Entertainment Movies

Time Travel Is Dangerous Review: Vintage Shop Heists Meet Cosmic Chaos

Shahrbanoo Golmohamadi by Shahrbanoo Golmohamadi
3 weeks ago
in Entertainment, Movies, Reviews
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on PinterestShare on WhatsAppShare on Telegram

A battered bumper car tucked behind dusty bins becomes the unlikely vessel for history’s greatest shoplift in Time Travel Is Dangerous, a British sci-fi mockumentary that treats the absurd as routine. In the cramped backroom of ChaChaCha—a Muswell Hill emporium stacked with faded dresses and chipped teacups—best friends Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan (Megan Stevenson) uncover a rickety time machine and embark on a gleeful spree through the Visigoth era, Napoleonic battlefields and even Wild West saloons. The film’s deadpan realism, captured in faux-documentary “interview” segments, renders each improbable caper as banal as choosing tomorrow’s shop display.

Director and co-writer Chris Reading orchestrates this capricious romp with a wink: Stephen Fry’s clipped narration punctuates moments of historical plunder, while thrift-shop interiors and VHS-tinted miniatures conjure an offbeat nostalgia.

Syratt and Stevenson play versions of themselves with perfectly calibrated indifference, their blasé delivery heightening every anachronistic find. As a pulsating vortex—ominously labeled “The Unreason”—begins to form in the storeroom, the stakes shift from clever vintage curation to a collision between small-town whimsy and cosmic recklessness.

Plot & Pacing: From Casual Looting to Wormhole Mayhem

At the outset, ChaChaCha teeters on the brink of closure, its owners eking out sales of faded tea sets and moth-eaten jackets. The discovery of a souped-up bumper car in a municipal dumpster transforms this flailing boutique into a temporal treasure trove: one moment Ruth and Megan muse over a 19th-century corset, the next they return clutching authentic Roman glassware. Their thrill lies in the routine—an assembly-line of epochal theft that feels as pedestrian as stocktaking.

Conflict emerges when Ralph (Brian Bovell), the machine’s restless inventor and former science-show host, warns against unregulated time heists. His pleas echo through the corridors of the Muswell Hill Science Club, where Martin (Guy Henry) presides with officious zeal, determined to reclaim or destroy the device. Spliced into these exchanges are miniature historical vignettes—gleefully crude homages to Time Bandits—and intentionally cheesy vortex graphics that underscore the film’s scrappy ingenuity.

Halfway through, the backroom rumbles as a rippling wormhole dubbed “The Unreason” appears, its shifting hues threatening to swallow more than misplaced relics. This mid-film rupture propels the story into kinetic rescue sequences: Ruth and Megan must navigate an interdimensional waste-land to retrieve a stranded comrade. The filmmakers strike a delicate rhythm, veering from deliberate, mock-serious interviews to breathless chase through swirling light. Moments of genuine peril surface amid the rapid-fire jokes, making the finale feel both madcap and momentous.

Performances & Character Dynamics: Blasé Bonds and Eccentric Eccentrics

Ruth Syratt and Megan Stevenson anchor the film with impeccable restraint, their blasé delivery turning each interlude into a fresh comedic beat. Whether examining a Roman coin with the interest of taxonomists or dismissing a near-miss with a shrug, they imbue their friendship with quiet warmth. Their real-life camaraderie translates into seamless back-and-forth that never tips into forced banter.

Time Travel Is Dangerous Review

Brian Bovell’s Ralph offers a counterpoint of rueful regret, his weathered gaze suggesting a man who has glimpsed the void and recoils. Guy Henry’s Martin radiates petty authority, his clipped British-club etiquette clashing beautifully with the duo’s laissez-faire ethics. Johnny Vegas appears as Botty, a stiff-jointed android in an homage to retro sci-fi, while Alex Horne and the Horne Section make a fleeting cameo that underlines the film’s delight in playful in-junctions. Stephen Fry’s voice, sparse yet resonant, frames the action, his narration more compass than crutch.

Throughout, characters evolve only as much as the mockumentary allows—Ruth and Megan’s curiosity hardens into concern when history fights back. The occasional tremor in their laughter hints at genuine stakes beneath the comedy. Interview segments—lensed in plain shafts of light against cluttered walls—forge intimacy with these hobbyists, inviting viewers to root for the underdogs even as they flout temporal etiquette.

Directorial Vision, Design & Thematic Resonance

Chris Reading’s direction melds The Office-style deadpan with bursts of Time Bandits whimsy, establishing a rhythm that alternates patient observation with sudden kinetic flourish. When the film lingers on shop shelves, it feels lived-in; when it cuts to miniature battles or swirling vortex effects, it revels in ecstatic looseness. The choice to lean into low-budget aesthetics—practical effects, VHS-style filters, intentionally clunky graphics—becomes an act of stylistic defiance, celebrating resourceful filmmaking over polish.

Time Travel Is Dangerous Review

Production design evokes an England where every chipped teacup holds a story and every shelf is a portal. Props range from meticulously reproduced Victorian eyewear to garish eighties VHS tapes of a long-forgotten children’s science show. The wormhole’s pulsing hues feel part puppet theatre, part scrap-heap spectacle—a visual metaphor for the chaos unleashed when nostalgia becomes a commodity.

Beneath the mock-serious humor lies a meditation on our hunger to possess history: the film skewers collector culture’s petty rivalries while teasing out the ethics of time-theft. Hobbyist territorialism, figured in the science club’s rules committee, mirrors larger questions about gatekeeping and preservation. As ancient artifacts tumble through the air with comic abandon, the viewer confronts the seduction—and dangers—of rewriting the past for profit.

Time Travel Is Dangerous premiered at the Austin Film Festival on October 28, 2024, and was released in UK cinemas on March 28, 2025.

Full Credits

Director: Chris Reading

Writers: Chris Reading, Anna-Elizabeth Shakespeare, Hillary Shakespeare

Producers: Anna-Elizabeth Shakespeare, Hillary Shakespeare, Chris Reading

Cast: Ruth Syratt, Megan Stevenson, Sophie Thompson, Johnny Vegas, Jane Horrocks, Mark Heap, Tony Way, Stephen Fry (Narrator), Laura Aikman, Guy Henry, Brian Bovell, Tom Lenk, Kiell Smith-Bynoe

Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Rich Maskey

Editors: Chris Reading, Anna-Elizabeth Shakespeare, Hillary Shakespeare

Composer: Simon Porter

The Review

Time Travel Is Dangerous

8 Score

Time Travel Is Dangerous transforms a humble vintage shop into a playground of temporal mischief, marrying deadpan mockumentary wit with bursts of madcap invention. Chris Reading’s scrappy direction and the effortless chemistry of Ruth Syratt and Megan Stevenson deliver a buoyant critique of nostalgia’s allure and the ethics of time theft. The film’s low-budget aesthetics become a joyful feature, lending each anachronistic caper a homespun charm. While the pacing occasionally tilts into chaos, its spirited inventiveness and sly cultural commentary make for an unforgettable romp.

PROS

  • Spot-on deadpan performances by Ruth Syratt and Megan Stevenson
  • Scrappy, DIY visuals that enhance the film’s charm
  • Clever mockumentary format with sharp cultural satire
  • Inventive use of miniature vignettes and retro effects
  • Underlying questions about nostalgia and ethical time-raiding

CONS

  • Pacing sometimes feels frenetic and disjointed
  • Certain subplots receive little development
  • Vortex and wormhole effects can appear too rough
  • Occasional tonal shifts may jar with the mock-serious style
  • Stephen Fry’s narration is underused

Review Breakdown

  • Overall 0
Tags: 2024 Austin Film FestivalCandr PicturesChris ReadingComedyFantasyFeaturedGuy HenryJane HorrocksJohnny VegasMark HeapMegan StevensonRuth SyrattSci-FiShakespeare Sisters Ltd.Sophie ThompsonTime Travel Is DangerousTony Way
Previous Post

Descendent Review: Alien Ambiguity Meets Fatherhood Angst

Next Post

From Crime Dramas to Football Docs Netflix Boosts Brazilian Content

Try AI Movie Recommender

Gazettely AI Movie Recommender

This Week's Top Reads

  • Art Detectives Review

    Art Detectives Review: The Case of the Brilliant Man and the Underwritten Woman

    107 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Deep Cover Review: A Script for Chaos, Left Unread

    2 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Boglands Review: Shadows and Whispers in the Irish Mist

    1 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Mix Tape Review: A Story Told on Two Sides of a Cassette

    1 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Titan: The OceanGate Disaster Review: History Repeats Itself in the Deep

    1 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • The Survivors Season 1 Review: A Town Drowning in Secrets

    1 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Marshmallow Review: These Woods Hide Unexpected Secrets

    4 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Must Read Articles

K.O. Review
Movies

K.O. Review: This Heavyweight Contender Lands Solid, If Predictable, Blows

10 hours ago
The Chelsea Detective Season 3 Review
Entertainment

The Chelsea Detective Season 3 Review: The Moral Topography of a Postal Code

21 hours ago
Bride Hard Review
Movies

Bride Hard Review: Something Borrowed, Something Broken

24 hours ago
We Were Liars Season 1 Review
TV Shows

We Were Liars Season 1 Review: Paradise Lost on Beechwood Island

1 day ago
The Chosen Season 5 Review
TV Shows

The Chosen Season 5 Review: The Gravity of a Predestined Hour

1 day ago
Loading poll ...
Coming Soon
Who is the best director in the horror thriller genre?

Gazettely is your go-to destination for all things gaming, movies, and TV. With fresh reviews, trending articles, and editor picks, we help you stay informed and entertained.

© 2021-2024 All Rights Reserved for Gazettely

What’s Inside

  • Movie & TV Reviews
  • Game Reviews
  • Featured Articles
  • Latest News
  • Editorial Picks

Quick Links

  • Home
  • About US
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise with Us
  • Review Guidelines

Follow Us

Facebook X-twitter Youtube Instagram
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Movies
  • Entertainment News
  • Movie and TV Reviews
  • TV Shows
  • Game News
  • Game Reviews
  • Contact Us

© 2024 All Rights Reserved for Gazettely

Go to mobile version