Plot: When a city in the distant future is besieged by murderous cyborgs, Ballard decides he must go back in time if humanity is to have any chance of survival. With his cohorts Annie and Petra, he journeys to 1980s Australia and searches for the key to helping them defeat their destined robotic overlords. The time travelers are misunderstood by the Australian populace who view them as dangerous outsiders.
The Time Guardian was Australia’s chance at an action-packed, high technology, sci-fi film and was meant to make Tom Burlinson a star. Instead it was seen as a failure at the time of release due to poor box office and reviews.
Despite its flaws The Time Guardian is the kind of B movie I can and do watch all the time. Carrie Fisher (Star Wars) is advertised as one of the main characters, but she doesn’t really get much to do, sadly.
The protagonist of the tale is Ballard (the aforementioned Tom Burlinson) who starts off as a gruff asshole who doesn’t have much time for Petra (Fisher), but it doesn’t take long for him become a hero and fall in love with Geologist Annie (Nikki Coghill). I feel like this would have worked better if Carrie Fisher had played Annie instead of Petra as she just spends most of the movie injured adding little to the story aside from exposition.
The cyborg villains of the tale known as the Jen-Diki still look pretty cool and their voices are awesome too. Comparisons with Terminator are understandable and Ballard even says “I’ll be Back” at one point, but this is suitably different and the idea of a city that travels through time is something interesting.
In terms of action we get plenty of explosions, laser battles and a couple of brief fights keeping things well paced. The fact this movie is under an hour and 25 minutes also helps so there isn’t much time wasting.
The performances aren’t the greatest with some clunky dialogue, however it’s hard not to just enjoy the silliness of it all.
Overall, The Time Guardian has some fun ideas and a decent amount of action, but Carrie Fisher is wasted in a thankless role and there are some dodgy performances making this the kind of movie I love and watch often.