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Time Code
Screen Gems
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for drug use, sexuality, language and a scene of violence
Starring
Saffron Burrows,
Salma Hayek,
Stellan Skarsgård,
and
Jeanne Tripplehorn
Mike Figgis's boldly innovative movie, using entirely improvised dialogue, simultaneously shows the audience four separate digital "movies," directing the audience's attention by manipulating the volume within the shots. The four individual movies, each shot simultaneously in 93 minutes of "real time" and synchronized by a series of earthquakes, tell the story of the casting of a bizarre movie in a Hollywood film production company.
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Mike Figgis
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Mike Figgis
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: October 10, 2000
Video: October 10, 2000
Theatrical: April 28, 2000
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
97 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
A voyeur's delight.
91
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
An audaciously unique and exciting film, not as successful as an A-to-Z story as it is mind-expanding as a vision of what the cinema can do.
90
Variety
Dennis Harvey
If the satire feels familiar, and the dramatics often contrived, there's rarely a moment here when something funny, intense or cleverly interconnected doesn't keep one's synapses firing on overdrive.
90
LA Weekly
F. X. Feeney
We're afforded the illusion of an omniscience so complete as to mark a pioneering breakthrough in movie storytelling, one not to be missed.
90
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
It's amazing to see a film so brazenly experimental, so committed to reflecting on the circumstances and techniques of its making, that is at the same time so intent upon delivering old-fashioned cinematic pleasures like humor and pathos, character and plot.
88
Chicago Tribune
Marc Caro
The movie world could use more stunts as entertaining and innovative as this one.
80
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Thomas
A clever way of providing crucial layering and heightening a hip, satirical take on bad old Hollywood ways.
80
Dallas Observer
Andy Klein
We become so absorbed in the ramifications of the techniques involved that a more challenging plot might have resulted in sensory overload.
75
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
This is a big, audacious stunt of a movie -- pointless, perhaps, but incredibly fun to play with.
75
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
It would be even more impressive if the story and characters lived up to the inventive techniques, though.
75
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Is the story being told worth a movie on its own merits? No way. Time Code exists as an esthetic event -- either a trick or a treat, depending on your expectations.
75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
I'm glad I saw the film. It challenged me.
75
Baltimore Sun
Ann Hornaday
Once you get the hang of Figgis' own brand of coercion -- one based on an intricate sound design and musical score -- you find yourself happily going along for the ride.
75
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
Like a good supermarket tabloid, Time Code grabs - and keeps - our attention.
70
Film.com
Gemma Files
A fascinating combination of dare, stunt and genuine artistic risk -- often disorganized, but never less than entertaining.
70
Newsweek
Andrea C. Basora
You may leave the theater with a bit of a headache, but you'll feel amply compensated by the sense of having seen a master inventor at work.
70
Mr. Showbiz
Richard T. Jameson
But for all its pretensions toward exemplifying a brave new way of making movies, Time Code offers less and less worth discovering as it slouches toward its tritely "fatal" climax.
70
TV Guide
Any (Specify)
Figgis's bold narrative strategy turns what could have been a standard-issue chronicle of shallow Hollywood lives into a fluid and enthralling experience.
67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
It induces a serious case of sensory overload that left me drained and edgy.
63
San Francisco Examiner
Wesley Morris
Just fascinating in an empty, trendy sort of way
60
Time
Richard Corliss
This spectacle of strenuous improvising is more stunt than true experiment.
60
Village Voice
Amy Taubin
I suspect that Time Code was a lot more fun to make than it is to watch.
60
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
But for all the meta-movie excitement, the content danced somewhere between mildly interesting and moderately enjoyable.
50
San Francisco Chronicle
Bob Graham
Story pitches are made. Coke is snorted. There is lesbian sex. Fellatio. An earthquake. A murder. Just another day in Hollywood.
50
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
In fact, for long stretches, especially during the first hour, it's as soporific as watching a bank of security cameras.
50
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
Gimmicky artifice.
50
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Both a headache and a marvel, often eliciting simultaneous groans of despair and sheer wonder at the director's nervy chutzpah.
50
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
An irrefutable triumph of engineering, and it entertained and intrigued me through two separate viewings...though as a view of the human condition it's astonishingly and depressingly meager.
40
Washington Post
Rita Kempley
A brain-cramping and eye-straining experiment in digital filmmaking.
40
Film.com
John Hartl
Just because you can make a movie in a day doesn't necessarily mean moviegoers should take an hour and a half to watch it.
30
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Even with sex, drugs, hip-hop and a murder, these four stories are dull, dull, dull, dull.
 The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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