We open with stock footage of many failed attempts by Professor Teddy Knox to work his time machine before the discovery of a relic in Ireland surrounded by three Neolithic skeletons and metal artefacts many years before metal was first used anywhere on record. Knox enlists James Douglas and his colleague to go back and meet the alien craft that he suspects first brought the artefacts to earth.
This short is very short and sweet but very professionally made. The opening montage is very funny, with Knox resorting to guns to take revenge on his experiments. The actual scientific find is interesting and is presented well as a period. The mystery is good but the humour remains witness Knox draw a gun to kill the farmer demanding his field back only to be gently discouraged by Douglas. The twist isn't too shocking but is very neat and, because it's short, by the time you see it coming it's happening.
Dance is well cast and is relaxed and works well as the sceptical bemused voice of reason in the piece. Paterson is excellent he plays his role a little like a Scottish Dr Strangelove and is clearly wonderfully unhinged. I would have liked to see is character given a little more free reign for comedy though. However all told these two men make this very watchable.
Overall I wouldn't call it the best short I've ever seen but it is concise, funny and quite clever as an idea. The twist is good and well worth the 10 minutes in a longer film I would have worked it out long before the end but here it works. The period is well set out and it does feel like the film `The Time Machine' (the original) in terms of characters, accents etc. Fun and better than I expected.
