FAQ About Time Travel

Ray (O Dowd), Toby (Wootton), two geeks, and Pete (Kelly), a cynic, are approached in their local pub by Cassie, a woman who claims to have travelled from the future to sort out a time leak in the licensed establishment's gents'. Following this incident, the three anti-heroes embark on a series of journeys through time to save themselves and the world.

FAQ About Time Travel is the ultimate film for all British comedy geeks. Billed as “Doctor Who meets Shaun of the Dead”, it features many familiar faces from the small screen: Chris O Dowd, of The IT Crowd fame, reprises a geek role as Ray, while Dean Lennox Kelly, who already encountered time travel in Doctor Who, is Pete the cynic.

While these roles look quite similar to their TV counterparts, FAQ About Time Travel is far from being an extended episode of either show. Admittedly it includes a lot of references to geek culture, but the film is still entertaining for a mass audience. However, FAQ is a genre comedy rather than a sitcom or an easy spoof like Epic Movie. It has a subtler approach: whilst the main characters are clearly there to fulfil a function, this is assumed and exploited to more ends than simply serving the plot.

Ray, specifically, embarks on a journey, and his character evolves from that of a loser to one who uses his potential to become a hero. In that respect, and in the wealth of nods it makes to the science-fiction genre, FAQ is very similar to Shaun of the Dead indeed.

Surprisingly enough for a comedy, FAQ about Time Travel does what it says on the tin and gets you thinking about the implications of time travel. All in all, it is a very worthy film.

Pierre Schramm