It all seems so simple to scientist and inventor Alexander Hartdegen after his fiancee of about ten seconds is bumped off by a mugger.

All he has to do is build a time machine, travel back to the moment before the fatal attack and alter the course of history.

So a grief-stricken Alex (Pearce, bearing a worrying resemblance to Jamiroquai) gets to work in his conservatory. What he comes up with resembles a dentist's chair after a particularly bruising encounter with a lighthouse reflector - but it does the job.

Alex is whisked off back to the scene of the crime... but he soon discovers that altering the course of history isn't that easy (just ask Tony Blair).

Mournfully despondent at his failure, Alex sets off - this time into the future - to find the answer to the question: how do you change the past?

Stopping off in 2030, he manages to park on New York's equivalent of a red route (without getting towed) and also runs into the compendium of all human knowledge - Vox.

Vox, a computerised hologram, responds to Alex's time travel query by referring him to the sci-fi section, the writings of HG Wells (nice one!) and, bizarrely, the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

With this brief comic interlude over, Alex is back on his way to a very different planet, where a new world order has taken over. Savvy native Mara (Mumba) is his guide and he very soon learns things ain't what they used to be and his very life is in danger.

After a fairly slow start, the Time Machine soon gets into gear and you can somehow forgive any film that provides unintentional laffs with a Jeremy Irons performance.

That said the action - with special effects provided by George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic - impresses, even if it is reminiscent of small-scale Lord of the Rings.

It's definitely worth a bit of your time (even if you can't travel back and save your admission fee).

Tim Evans