Whether it’s last night’s burritos, a hurtful comment, or a messy relationship, everyone wishes they time travel sometimes. The deep desire to change the past and create a better future keeps audiences returning to time travel movies repeatedly. In addition, the ability to explore a new place or time is what brings viewers to the movie in the first place.
Some science fiction movies like interstellar and The Martian are so well researched that they feel like reality. Other science fiction movies are more fiction than science, but they can still open the door to fun or interesting stories. Here are some movies where time travel was totally unrealistic, illogical and ridiculous, entertaining as they are.
Kate and Leopold
High Jackman and Meg Ryan star in a compelling love story that spans time in Kate and Leopold. Jackman plays Leopold, a charming 1870s duke who faces family pressures to get married. When Leopold accidentally falls into a gravity time portal, he discovers that the present is full of all sorts of unknown challenges (including love).
The film’s physicist does his best to explain his time travel system. Even though his explanations are better than many of the other movies on this list, the idea that whirlpools miraculously appear sporadically still makes no sense. In addition, Leopold’s need to return home (even after finding love in the future) is a huge plot point in the story; however, it seems that Leopold could have been a way to stay in the future.
Somewhere in Time
Somewhere in Time comes with all the cheesiness that some people turn from older movies. Richard (the great) Superman actor Christopher Reeve) falls instantly in love with a woman after seeing her portrait, but soon learns that the woman lived nearly 70 years earlier. Desperate to meet the girl of his dreams, the man turns to time travel through meditation. The idea that one can put oneself into the past brings up an interesting concept, but it is hardly up to the task of current science. How can one physically transport oneself through time with sheer willpower?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3
In this movie, the famous Ninja Turtles Travel back in time to defeat the ancestor of their greatest enemy. Watching the trendy turtles navigate the customs of the past creates a humorous situation and ridiculous jokes for families to enjoy. However, the science behind the turtle’s time travel remains virtually non-existent.
The turtles only use a magical glowing staff that happily takes them to just the right time and place. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 isn’t the only time travel movie that relies on an inexplicable artifact to safely and painlessly transport characters back and forth. Harry Potter, Men in Black 3 and Making History all use the same trope.
The house by the lake
After starring together Speed, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock made this lesser-known film together. In The house by the lake, a man and a woman living in the same house at different times communicate through a magical mailbox that sends their letters through time. How exactly this letterbox works is never explained in the film. If such a mailbox really existed, it’s a miracle (and ethically questionable) that the couple only used it to write love letters, and never to prevent major tragedies.
source code
After an unknown bomber destroys an entire train of people, the government sends Captain Colter Stevens’ consciousness back in time to launch the bomber. source code. Since the new time travel program “Source Code” is still highly experimental, they send Colter’s mind back in time and into another man’s body. The ethics behind the government sending a soldier’s mind to inhabit the body of any civilian is never fully explored, and permission to occupy another human is highly unlikely to be obtained.
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Superhero fans love the X-Men for its variety of different superheroes, superpowers and super stories. X-Men: Days of Future Past introduces a character who can send the minds of others back in time. Years after mutant-killing robots destroyed the world, some of the last human mutants standing send Wolverine back in time to prevent war from ever coming.
The time-traveling superpower is unrealistic, but acceptable for the world that X-Men already made. Aside from the time travel itself, the film contains a paradox almost every time a character travels back in time. If someone successfully changes the past, future versions no longer need to visit the past. The film never explains this paradox, or how the fabric of time holds together, and Professor X’s fate is in doubt.
Hot Tub Time Machine
Any time travel list usually mentions this Steve Pink movie, and for good reason – Hot Tub Time Machine is a famous satire on every other time-traveling sci-fi movie, and as such it obviously takes pleasure in the stupidity of the narrative device in other movies. After four friends realize they’re unhappy with their lives, a time machine in a bubble bath gives them the chance to change their future.
Time travel in this movie is explained by too many energy drinks and alcohol in a bubble bath. While consuming so many chemicals may feel like a journey through time, they would never send anyone back in time. Watching this film and its sequel, on the other hand, is a wonderful trip down memory lane.
The Excellent Adventure of Bill and Ted
While many garage bands may hope to create world peace with their music, Bill and Ted really did! Or at least one day they will, after they pass their history exams. The night before their history exam in The Excellent Adventure of Bill and TedRufus brings Bill and Ted a time-traveling phone booth to help with their history test and eventual world-changing music.
Despite being a common sci-fi trope (possibly taken from doctor who), there is little science to support a time-traveling payphone. And most importantly, how does the glass not break on landing? In addition, Bill and Ted’s butterfly effect on history in their present day should have caused a lot more chaos than is portrayed in the film. Ultimately, like many of the movies on this list, the idiocy of the mechanism doesn’t really detract from the fun of the movie.