Norman's Awesome Experience

My review was written in October 1989 after watching the movie on South Gate video cassette.

This entertaining time-travel feature, released direct-to-video, was made in 1987 as "A Switch in Time" but retitled to take advantage of the hit Orion release "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure".

Oddball promise has hip young lab assistant Norman (Tom McCamus) transported back to the days of ancient Rome due to a power surge at the Geneva high-energy physics installation where he works. Accompanying him are a pretty model (Laurie Paton) and her Italian photographer (Jacques Lussier), who've secretly entered the facility to shoot a glamor layout for Omni magazine.

Unlike "Bill & Ted", pic doesn't hop around but takes the cast on a single adventure, fighting barbarians in remote European colonies controlled by ancient Rome. It's nicely filmed on Argentine locations. Lack of variety is a drawback in a genre in which time paradoxes and sci-fi gimmickry usually makes for most of the fun.

Cast does a fine job, particularly Paton as the feisty heroine. Golden oldies on the soundtrack aim for the target youth audience. Special effects are modest.

Contrary to what you might think, this *isn't* a knock-off of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure". Sources differ on the exact release dates, but it was at the very least in production before B&T came out. The plot is quite different (except for the bare fact that time travel happens) and it's pretty clear it was retitled to cash in on the more successful movie's reputation.

It's not a particularly great movie, but it doesn't aim to be Shakespeare. Aside from the time travel itself, what happens is technically feasible, and the story points out the realistic difficulties even a knowledgeable modern person would have just surviving in, much less changing, the past.

Through the actions of a fellow scientist, Norman, a model and her photographer travel back in time to the Roman Empire under Nero. The trio arrive in the Swiss Alps and are soon captured by a local tribe. They start a revolution and are quickly running the village. When Nero finds out - he sends a Legion to to put down the rebellion. Once the Romans arrive, things really hot up. How will the tiny village defend themselves against the strength of Rome's finest. But then, the Romans have never encountered Norman before. And how will the trio ever get back to their own time? This is a great story, well acted and with the music of Roy Oberson, makes it perfect.

'A Switch in Time' -- re-titled 'Norman's Awesome Experience' in some countries to cash in on the success of 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure' -- this earlier Canadian comedy is a very different sort of movie, premise of traveling back in time aside. Norman, unlike Bill and Ted, is well educated and clever; in fact, he is a scientist accidentally sent back in time with a fashion model and her boyfriend who con him into showing them his laboratory. As the trio find themselves in Ancient Rome, the model and her boyfriend take to assuming power in their tiny village while Norman sets about inventing things that do not yet exist; one of the film's funniest lines has him tell the model "I'll invent soap!" if she quits complaining about the noise that he is making. Norman's inventions (which also include the world's first printing press!) unfortunately take a back seat to battle sequences and side scenes in which the Ancient Roman characters debate what to do about the 'revolution' that the model and her boyfriend have sparked. In fact, Norman gets less screen time than his fellow two time travelers. 'A Switch in Time''s descent into near obscurity over the years is not too surprising at the end of the day. The opening handful of scenes (filmed inside real laboratories) are great, but the filmmakers do not always seem to know what to do once their characters arrive in the past.