10/10
Very funny and very clever sci-fi time travel movie
26 February 2000
I remember seeing this movie late one night on the BBC in England. It was many years ago (early 80s I think) but it was so good and I've always wanted to see it again. The plot centers around an airline pilot in the future who works for a time travel company who run tours to the past. I can't really remember all the details but it was something about one of the time-travel ships being hijacked by some people who want to kidnap Hitler or something. There are all sorts of hilarious mixups and weird goings as the hero goes backwards and forwards to different eras of history. He ends up re-visiting the same day 3 times - trying to avoid bumping into himself (thus causing a time paradox). I'm a bit fuzzy on the details but I also remember that a sort of pepper spray is frequently used which turns the victim a putrid green color and freezes them for a while in a particularly amusing way. The production design is a terrific late 70s very Czech vision of the future, kind of funny but inventive and setting the perfect tone. I laughed a lot and was left well impressed by the very intelligent way the concept of time travel was handled. All too often in scifi/time travel movies the internal logic of the situation is fundamentally flawed. In this movie all those paradoxes work toward build up the humor as the hero's life becomes more and more complex and confused. As far as I can remember anyway. If anyone knows any way I can get hold of or even just see a copy of this film here in the US (where I don't believe it was ever released) please e-mail me. A forlorn hope I guess because even some Czech friends of mine hadn't even heard of it!
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