Time Traveler's Wife - C-

In theaters. Rated PG-13, 107 minutes. Trailer.

I was tricked by this trailer, which utilized a great song ("Broken" by Lifehouse) and good editing to make it seem like a decent romantic drama. Instead it was a plotless exercise devoid of character development or thought-provoking sequences. Eric Bana does great work with bad material, and Rachel McAdams continues her streak as the best romantic actress out there. Click below for more on why Eric Bana's butt is haunting me:

The premise of the film is that Eric Bana has a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel uncontrollably and randomly. He marries a woman (McAdams) and the film tells the story of their life, as impacted by his disorder. All the estrogen boxes are checked (first kiss, wedding, birthing scene), but none of the brain boxes are. We are thrust into their love for eachother, without ever seeing any real evidence or explanation of it, which is a major flaw. I didn't root for them to work it out, because there was no real rooting interest. There is a weak attempt to develop Bana's character, but it is not effective and really is just a distraction from the film. The usually genius Ron Livingston is wasted in a generic hipster friend role that adds nothing.

The filmmakers chose to have Bana time travel nude, so every time he goes to a new time he shows us his butt ("Banal"....rock me). His predicament is ridiculous and is used to no effect to show the power of love or anything else. A dumb film.