I wish I had a time machine. I would use it to fly back in time to warn myself and others to avoid the new version of The Time Machine, the latest in a long line of big-budgeted, bloated "remakes" that do nothing but give the original a bad name.

Scientist and inventor Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce) is determined to prove that time travel is possible. His determination is turned to desperation when the love of his life (Sienna Guillory) is murdered by a robber just after Alexander proposes marriage to her. This tragedy drives Hartdegen to want to change the past in order to save his doomed love. Testing his theories with a time machine of his own invention, Hartdegen discovers that you can't alter destiny. So he's off to the future, where he is hurtled 800,000 years into the future. Here he discovers that mankind has divided into two races: benign surface dwellers known as the Eloi and a cannibalistic underground race known as the Morlocks.

With a great novel as his guide and state of the art computer effects at his disposal to create visual worlds of wonder, director Simon (great-grandson of HG) Wells should have had little to no problem making a competent updated version of The Time Machine. So much for a sure thing. Wells displays no ability to create a sense of urgency, dramatic tension, adventure or even plain fun. The Time Machine is Wells' first live-action directing gig (he previously co-directed the animated Prince Of Egypt) and it shows. The film is a dreary, boring, joyless adventure film that makes the recent Mummy films look like entertainment of the highest order.

John Logan's screenplay is another major problem. In his anemic adaptation, the characters are virtually nonexistent, his hero's encounters with people and places from other times are slight to say the least and Uber Morlock (Jeremy Irons), the oh-so dangerous menace of the future, is nothing more than a couch potato in desperate need of a day at the beach.

As played by Guy Pearce, Hartdegen doesn't come across as a brilliant scientist capable of saving the day. He comes off as a bumbling idiot who seems incapable of traveling across the street much less space and time. Pearce is a very talented actor (Memento, LA Confidential), but you would never know this by watching him here. Irons, looking like Johnny Winter with a spinal problem, continues his career suicide with a hammy ten-minute appearance as the villain, while singer Samantha Mumba shows up to look pretty as the futuristic love interest who, despite 800,000 years of evolution, can speak perfect English and seems to have a decent supply of health and beauty products at her disposal.

Even the effects, both computer generated and makeup, are mediocre. Considering that makeup whiz Stan Winston and visual effects house giants Digital Domain and Industrial Light and Magic were in charge of these departments, this is even more of a letdown. Perhaps they used a time machine to bring this work onto the set from an era of filmmaking long ago. That would explain the quality of work on display here.

One question that our hero asks at the beginning of the film that begins him on his quest is "What if?" For different reasons altogether, I found myself echoing those words repeatedly while watching The Time Machine. What if the film's production actually had someone who knew what they were doing behind the camera? What if they stuck to the book more closely? What if I said "no thanks" to the screening passes that night?

What if, indeed.

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