From director/producer Richard Donner ( Lethal Weapon) and producer Lauren Shuler Donner ( X-Men). Inspired by the author Michael Crichton ( Jurassic Park), Timeline is a thrilling action adventure. Timeline is about a team of student archaeologists digging at a medieval site in France when suddenly their professor disappears ? into the 14th century! Embarking on a perilous journey to rescue him from the middle of a feudal war, the students find they?re not just excavating the past ? they?re living it. Just enough of Michael Crichton's novel survives in Timeline to make it a passable popcorn thriller. It's likely that Crichton fans will lament the shallowness of director Richard Donner's film, and its gee-whiz style of acting lays waste to any scientific credibility that Crichton's scenario might have retained. Still, the Crichton formula is a sturdy one, following the model of Westworld and Jurassic Park by involving a small band of adventurers in a fantastical realm of danger and death. In this case, a group of archaeologists and combat experts (led by Paul Walker and Frances O'Connor) use a "3-D fax machine" (so much for technobabble) to time-travel back to France in 1357, in hope of retrieving Walker's father (Billy Connolly) and returning safely to the present. No such luck. Fending for themselves against marauding hordes of medieval French warriors at war with the invading British, these semi-intrepid travellers find their body count rising, and the deadline for their return home is rapidly approaching. All well and good, so far, and the castles-and-crossbows action reaches a fever pitch, but it's obvious that Donner is too lazy to make the much better film that this could and should have been. Despite its enjoyable highlights, Timeline is perfunctory entertainment. -- Jeff Shannon Review "Entertaining ? a visual treat ? superb" -- Film Review