By Dennis Hartley

Chris Reading’s comedy-adventure about a pair of North London antique shop owners who stumble on a working bumper car time machine seemed to have the requisite elements that would put it right in my wheelhouse: I love British comedy, I love science fiction, and I especially love British science fiction comedies (e.g. Time Bandits, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Morons From Outer Space, The Mouse on the Moon)…but unfortunately it never quite gelled for me.

The story centers on two long time friends, Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan (Megan Stevenson) who are in arrears with their landlord and in imminent danger of losing the lease on their vintage shop. When they discover they have the ability to time travel, they see dollar signs (imagine scoring antiquities in mint condition!). What they don’t foresee are the (wait for it) dangers of time travel (wormholes, the possibility of meeting yourself, changing reality, etc.).

Despite a promising setup and some amusement, the proceedings get progressively more cacophonous and disjointed- especially once one of the women gets trapped (along with the third act) in some kind of inter-dimensional purgatory called The Unreason.

It feels like a waste of a good cast, which includes seasoned British thesps like Brian Blessed, Jane Harrocks, and Stephen Fry (Fry narrates). By the time the credits began to roll I found myself wishing I could travel 99 minutes back in time before all this happened to me.