THE SPEED OF TIME

THE SETUP

Firstly, I’d just like to start off by thanking Co-Writer/Director, William J. Stribling (Bear With Us) for sharing a link to his latest short film, “The Speed Of Time”. The film is a 13-minute Sci-Fi/Action/Comedy short that revolves around Johnny Killfire (played by John Hennigan aka pro-wrestler “John Morrison”), an agent who is tasked with going back in time to team up with his former-self (Sean Marquette) to stop Timeborgs coming into possession of a modern day app that breaks the space-time continuum via pizza delivery. The film also stars Nic Nemeth and Alex Jennings.

The Speed Of Time presents as a super ambitious concept ultimately conceived on what appears to be a fairly modest budget. The film wastes no time jumping straight in part way through an implied narrative that preceded it. Killfire is seen fighting a number of Borgs while trying to retrieve what turns out to be a time traveling device. It’s a great opening scene that showcases some good fight choreography and surprisingly acute visual fx work. The cinematography throughout is easy on the eyes, the audio track is clear, and the sound design gives the film plenty of life. In addition, composer Dylan Glatthorn brings his music to life with an adventurous and larger than life type score. In spite of some of its razzle dazzle surface value, Stribling and co-writer Russ Nickel’s screenplay really ends up shining by way of its dialogue. The pairing of Hennigan and Marquette reel their lines off quite rapidly and yet manage to land almost all of the one-liners with great precision. There’s a number of clever gags revolving around past/present tense. Aside from the lame “low jack” plug and perhaps the “fork” pun, everything else worked nicely. A nit picky complaint would be that some of the blood coloration seemed off in the early stages of the film – improved upon by the end though.

The Speed Of Time is a cracking little time traveling genre blend of a short film. Reminiscent of things like “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and “Kung Fury” (a personal favorite), it’s got a little bit of everything. The situational and word play comedy is fun, the action is well conceived, and the performances hit the appropriate beats. Technical elements are pretty consistent across the board and it just might be that you see this one being developed into a feature film at some point (although don’t quote me on that). You can go ahead and watch the short now over on the DUST YouTube channel, I’ll put the link below. Enjoy, I know I did!

The Speed Of Time – 8/10