Hollywood time travel capers often feature adventurers who go back in time to remedy past maladies. The Time Machine is no exception.

The latest update of H.G. Wells' sci-fi standard starts as a fast paced, visually stunning film but quickly unravels into just another lackluster blockbuster.

The Time Machine kicks off in turn-of-the-century New York City, which unfolds across the screen like a storybook version of an urban winter wonderland.

Chiseled Guy Pearce performs the role of genius, though absent-minded, Professor Alexander Hartdegan.

When a Central Park mugger kills Alexander's blonde-bombshell honey (Sienna Guillory) seconds after his proposal, Alexander desperately resolves to go back in time and save her.

After four years of anguished determination, Alexander completes his creation — a barbershop chair nested in a web of gleaming gadgets — which returns him to the day his fiancée died. However, Alexander's venture again ends in predictable tragedy.

Alexander decides that he must travel into the future to discover why he cannot change the past.

Fast forward to 2030 NYC, where even Vox (Orlando Jones), a computerized hologram know-it-all, cannot provide our dashing scientist with a satisfactory answer.

Still perplexed, Alexander travels onward, but inadvertently propels himself about eight thousand years too far into the future.

He finds a world divided in the aftermath of the moon's explosion; we find a movie shattered by narrative neglect and over-attention to special effects.

The habitants of this less-than-brave new world are the Eloi and the Morlocks.

The Eloi are the passive, childlike cliff dwellers who are hunted by the Morlocks, the cannibalistic monsters that dwell underground in the world.

An independent, English-speaking Eloi named Mara (Samantha Mumba) befriends Alexander.

When the Morlocks capture her, Alexander sets out to find Mara and his unattainable answer.

His quest is one of peril and plot holes, which confuse any viewer searching for character motivation or continuity of action.

The majority of the movie takes place in the primitive landscape of 802,701, but The Time Machine leaves its heart in 1899. The movie's introductory sliver feels like a fairy tale, complete with grand scenery and a love-struck hero more beguiling than Prince Charming.

Though Pearce plays the grieving lover with passion (rent Memento for an even finer example), the big-budget special effects steal the spotlight from the deserving actor.

The Time Machine does not star Pearce, as you may assume. It stars albino ape-like creatures and computer animated battle scenes.

The time-lapse photography signifying the passage of thousands of years is effective, but everything else feels like a weak imitation of Lord of the Rings.

Mumba's Mara is even more pitiful than the Morlocks, who look like they belong on the set of '80s monster-mayhem-masterpiece Labyrinth.

I would say that pop songstress Mumba should stick to singing, but her vocal performance is just as pre-fabricated and bland as her acting.

Jeremy Irons is tamely villainous in his brief and uninspiring stint as the Uber-Morlock, whose cat-eye contacts and leather get-up render visions of Marilyn Manson: The Retirement Home Years.

Director Simon Wells should consider emulating the typical time-travelling protagonist, and go back in time to repair the movie blunders made in this film.