The Time Machine

Based in part on the classic H. G. Wells novel of the same name, the movie adaptation follows the adventures of scientist/professor Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce). When a personal tragedy turns his interest in time travel into an obsession, he locks himself into his laboratory until he finally succeeds in inventing a working time machine. His own interests drive him into the past, where he is the first human being to learn whether events that happen once are fated to happen regardless of any interventions, or if the past is, indeed, changeable. His quest for more information then takes him into the near future, then finally into the far-flung future. Armed with the knowledge of centuries upon centuries of human history, he is faced with a puzzle he could never have conceived of when he began his journey. It is this dilemma that finally reveals secrets of the fundamental nature of time travel to its inventor.