One of my favorite time travel movies. This is a film that's taut and well-made and probably a tad too adult for the Saturday morning kiddie type crowd. It really should appeal to the viewer who has his thinking cap on and can appreciate attention to historical detail. In late 1982 the hero, an off road motorbike racer, named Lyle Swann, unwittingly gets caught in the middle of a time-travel experiment and is transported to the Old West of 1877. In the strata of science-fiction and time travel, this is believable since he's alone in the middle of the desert and cannot ascertain that he's been transported through a time warp. As the film progresses Swann meets several people in 1877: outlaws, an attractive woman named Clare Cygne from Louisiana, a priest Quinn heading a small town and two US Marshalls. The outlaws led by Porter Reese appear to be Civil War veterans from the Confederate side when Reese makes a crack about 'General Lee would have won the war if he had Swann's motorcycle'. The filmmakers add a nice touch and nod to Mark Twain. When Clare pulls out a copy of Twain's "Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", written in 1865, viewers paying attention to the scene will recall that Twain is the author of one of the most famous time travel stories "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" written in 1889 and which probably inspires this film. Clare asks Swann if he can read and if he's read any Mark Twain and Swann responds telling Clare he has and that "Tom Sawyer" is Twain's most famous book. Since the old-west part of this film takes place in 1877, it wouldn't have been unusual that Clare would not have heard of "Tom Sawyer" as it had only been published in 1876. Other nice touches of realism are the showcasing of a community of outlaws living in a outlaw camp. The viewer may ask what are those outlaws doing for food, for clothes, bathing, laundry altogether basic survival. When one outlaw is shot early in the film his cohorts pick his body of clothing & belongings before the vultures get to him. The priest and Clare work together bartering with Mexican locals, trinkets, guns, and food stuffs.The film showcases several adult themes ie: profanity, gunshots, mild sex scene. It's amazing the film was released with a PG rating but remember this was 1982, two years before the Motion Picture ratings system was upgraded to include PG-13 and NC-17. The director keeps the film accurate to its 1877 time frame and shows elements in a western that are realistic such as the profanity and the renegade woman Clare who is a gunslinger, ?prostitute and adventuress. This film gets away with telling mature elements in Western that were not up to that time seen in conventional westerns especially going back to b/w films in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Had Timerider been made in the early 70s it might have been better received. If it had come out in the 40s or 50s as a film noir western it would certainly be a classic but with a compromise. There would not have been no cursing, no scrib gunshot wounds, the sex scene would not be explicit, though for 1982 the scene given is mild. More explicit sex scenes can be viewed in daytime soaps.GRANDFATHER PARADOX An interesting aspect of this film is the application by some of the 'so-called' Grandfather Paradox. Hmmm! This supposedly applies when Clare and Lyle have sex and she questions him about the pendant around his neck. He tells her that his great great grandmother took it from his great great grandfather after an incredible night and the great great grandfather was never seen again. At the end of the film Swann is rescued by helicopter by the scientists responsible for transporting him to 1877. The head scientists tells Lyle that Clare cannot come back with them to 1982 by which time Clare snatches Lyle's pendant from his neck. When Clare takes the pendant this essentially repeats the story of Lyle's great great grandmother: END OF STORY!.....No mysterious paradox, Clare merely snatches the pendant. At this point many viewers who have seen the film think that Clare's actions reveal her to be Lyle's great great grandmother. I thought this too at one time but this is IMPOSSIBLE. Even if time-travel was real, Lyle Swann could not be his own great great grandfather or father his own great grandmother who would be the child Clare would conceive after the night of sex with Lyle. IMPOSSIBLE, even if time-travel were real a person could not literally go back in time and father his own ancestor. A person has to come from somewhere, he has to have a history. Swann could sleep with his great great grandmother, impregnate her and it would be a completely different individual. (Remember when the two of them were going over the Mark Twain books she tells Swann her real name, Clare Cygne, which if she was his great great grandmother, he should have known her name. Or it should have sounded familiar. A flag should have gone up in Swann's head as to her identity.)This puts an end to the Grandfather Paradox. ...The pendant, a seemingly valuable trinket as Lyle had been handed down to by his mother, is probably something from the 19th century and now it's returning to it's original time when Clare snatches it. If Clare is pregnant by Lyle she'll merely hand it down to her offspring and he/she will hand it down and so forth but there is no reason Lyle will ever see it again as it will be a totally different set of people and circumstances who will receive the pendant.The film gets 3 1/2 stars out of 4.

"Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann" has an intriguing premise: What if a modern day motorcycle rider was transported back in time with his motorbike to the age of the cowboy? The movie manages to mine some interesting and entertainment moments from this, ranging from the reaction of nineteenth century people to this modern figure and his machine to some interesting action moments. It's also fun to see cult stars L.Q. Jones and Ed Lauter.While the movie passes the time acceptably, at the same time I couldn't help but feel that the screenwriters didn't punch up the script enough. The bad guys are for the most part brutal thugs, and the reason for the chief bad guy wanting the motorbike is never revealed. The hero is also weak - we don't get to see much of him before he's transported back in time, and he seems mighty slow to figure out he's been transported back in time. And the movie doesn't take much opportunity for the modern day hero to use what he has and what he knows on these backward people.Overall, the movie is worth watching, though when you aren't feeling that demanding. It also helps if you like westerns.

Amusing cult flick combines sci-fi and the Western in this offbeat tale of a motocross racer, Lyle Swann (Fred Ward), who gets lost and wanders into the testing area of a time travel experiment. So good old Lyle is zapped back over a hundred years to the Old West where he confounds the locals with his outrageous (to them, anyway) get-up and his astounding vehicle, which slimy outlaw Porter Reese (Peter Coyote) wants to obtain no matter what.The film is co-written (with director William Dear), produced and scored by ex - "Monkee" Michael Nesmith, and overall is pretty entertaining, even if it's doing a lot of standard fish-out-of-water humour. However, after a while it begins to take itself just a little too seriously. The viewer can also take issue with just how clueless Lyle remains about his situation. It never once occurs to him that he could have ended up in the past."Timerider" certainly features an impressive roster of character actors - Ward is likable in the starring role, the oddly matched Richard Masur and Tracey Walter are funny as bickering brothers, and Ed Lauter, L.Q. Jones, Chris Mulkey, and Macon McCalman are fine in supporting parts. Belinda Bauer is damn sexy in the part of a feisty female outlaw who becomes attracted to Lyle.The camera-work and cinematography are first rate, and the scenery is beautiful to look at. The costumes are nicely done, as well. Nesmiths' score is catchy, funky stuff. There is some violence, but never much in the way of gore.B movie enthusiasts will surely enjoy the premise of this little film, which does move along quite well and offer enough diverting set pieces and laughs to rate as acceptable entertainment.Seven out of 10.

This was the first Cable movie I ever saw way back in 1983.The best things were its gadgets and predictions, more or less about our time believe it or not. He had a tricked up motorcycle with a heads up display on the inside of his helmet. Today I wish I had one of those with an lcd panel for my cubicle at work, complete with 5.1 dolby and bluetooth, oh well. The movie was great and I believe an ex-Monkey fellow named Mike Nesmit was somehow involved. It kinda fits in that genera that included 'The Comet' and Fred Wards later movie 'Remo Williams'. The helicopter scene is legendary even today. And Peter Coyote and Richard Masur have gone on to bigger and better things. I think it would play very well even today it has a timeless quality to it. The dead on predictions about gadgets though were erie, like Captain Kirk and his cell phone and Quantum Leaps Albert and Zyggy's Palm Pilot or iPaq.. just goes to show that Art doesn't often imitate life, its usually the other way 'round. I'd highly recommend this movie even for a contemporary audience. Though, the shocker scene I think is often edited out.. even on the VHS or DVD releases I've heard... it doesn't take too much away from the story.