When the best moment of a movie focuses on the image of changing hemlines in a dress shop window to illustrate the passage of time, one has to wonder what the filmmakers were aiming for. In this tepid remake of The Time Machine (1960), all the enduring themes of the epic H.G. Wells novel have been repackaged into a spectacle reminiscent of a frivolous fashion trend. Yes, all the special effects are there, but not to great effect. This Time Machine falls flat on its carefully crafted digital set.

The plot of Time Machine revolves around the trials of distracted professor Alexander Hartdegan (Guy Pearce). Pleasantly bopping along with his trusty pocket watch in turn-of-the-century New York, Hartdegan becomes obsessed with changing the past after his fiancée dies moments after their betrothal. With all the energy of his angst, he builds—yes, that’s right—a time machine. But Hartdegan learns that the past cannot be changed, and consequently decides to check out what the future holds. A few plot twists later and we’re 800 centuries in the future. New York City has become a grassland inhabited by two races of people, the nature-loving Eloi and their cannibalistic hunters, the Morlocks, who periodically capture and feed on them.

Sadly, the script’s adaptation of the novel has reduced all the poeticism of the latter to aphorisms that would make Disney cringe. The real problem with the paucity of the screenplay is the fact that, with one notable exception, the characters are written to be so dull and lifeless that calling them one-dimensional is an overstatement. This does nothing to help the performances of the actors. Pearce, riveting in L.A. Confidential and the memorable Memento, turns in a flat performance. What is particularly unfortunate is the fact that his acting in Time Machine raises questions about his versatility. The obsessive, removed quality that made Pearce’s performance in Memento so unique has returned in a lukewarm, watered-down form that dovetails nicely with the lukewarm, watered-down quality of the entire film. His portrayal of Hartdegan in Time Machine definitely represents a step down in an otherwise upwardly mobile career.

However, Samantha Mumba as the Mara, the Eloi woman Hartdegan befriends, simply glows. With her expressive eyes she exudes a natural grace that makes her the only believable character in the film. Time Machine marks Mumba’s film debut and she has turned in a performance that is sure to make her the new favorite among Hollywood starlets. Her character represents the simultaneous innocence and wisdom of the new human race. Mumba’s acting conveys the emotional and physical landscape of the future world in a way that the extravagant set does not. Apparently Warner Brothers built a 65-foot tall working waterfall–despite the expense, it’s an entirely forgettable special effect. Jeremy Irons, as the chillingly androgynous Uber-Morlock who runs the dark world of the Morlocks through mind control, has the one memorable monologue in the movie. Hartdegan has traveled to the creepy center of the Morlock world to look for the captured Mara, who is being kept by Uber as an eventual breeding vessel for the Morlock race. Irons has less than five minutes of screen time, but Uber manages to emerge as the most complex character in the film.

Still, even with this memorable sequence involving Irons, I caught myself wishing for a more violently humorous depiction of Mara’s fate. While she was stuck behind bars and looking pallid, I was hoping for some cinematic, futuristic depiction of the famed “bodice ripper” genre of fiction. And in my yearning for this naughtiness the real problem of the movie is revealed. The Time Machine is stuck in trying-to-please-every-demographic-land. It’s rated PG-13 so that children cannot see it; there’s no foul language, but there are lots of scary looking creatures running around trying to eat people in a couple of poorly directed chase scenes. It might have worked if it were ribald and raunchy, or conversely, if it were more firmly seated in Disney-esque land. But as it is, Time Machine sits unhappily in the middle of these two extremes.

The Time Machine’s attempt at moralizing about the danger of obsessing with technology comes in the final scene. With the line: “It’s only a machine,” the time machine is destroyed and Hartdegan is stranded forever 800,000 years in the future. But as this salient bit of information is revealed, the movie cuts quickly to a shot of the time traveler slyly grasping Mara’s hand. After all, it was only a machine that caused Hartdegan to save the future world and fall in love again after the death of his fiancée. Ah Hollywood, such hypocrisy! But one can’t blame Hartdegan; if I were stranded 800 centuries in the future, I sure wouldn’t mind having the fetching Mara as a companion either.