I’ve seen the title of the British sci-fi comedy Time Travel Is Dangerous! stylized with and without the exclamation point, but I say keep it. It’s sweetly earned.

The script, credited to director Chris Reading and sisters Anna-Elizabeth Shakespeare and Hillary Shakespeare, wastes no time setting up the goofy premise. Underachiever best friends Ruth and Megan (played by real-life best friends Ruth Syratt and Megan Stevenson) run a vintage shop in a London suburb. Where do they source their inventory of surprisingly authentic artifacts? Well, turns out Ruth and Megan stumbled onto a time machine and have been using it to steal stuff across history – from the Visigoths to Napoleonic times and the American West – and sell it in their shop. Will their casualness about messing with the time-space continuum – which they know, or care, nil about – come back to haunt them? You betcha!

The film adopts a mock-documentary format – not the freshest idea, but it doesn’t get in the way of things – and the deadpan delivery is a nice contrast as the plot corkscrews in enjoyably weird ways. The time machine, by the way, is a relic of the Eighties, as are the VHS tapes they discover of an old children’s science show starring Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Johnny Vegas. (Taskmaster fans who just perked up: There’s also a cute Alex Horne & the Horne Section cameo.) The Eighties aesthetic runs throughout, and spiritually, Time Travel Is Dangerous! is something of an 8-bit charmer, full of practical effects and the anything-goes wackiness that engined action-comedies of the era.

Time Travel Is Dangerous!

World Premiere

Monday, Oct. 28, 6:30pm, Galaxy Highland

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This article appears in October 25 • 2024.

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A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...