It is perhaps close to impossible
to make a movie set in a cave featuring a group of non-adults that doesn't end
up having, at least for a few seconds here and there, an almost Goonies (1985 / trailer)-like feel. And
so it is with Time Trap, if only for a second or two now and then, an
independent sci-fi movie that should appeal to younger folks looking for
something that doesn't scream "kiddy film" (most of the kids are
post-pubescent) but also doesn't fixate on adult themes or aspects that might
turn the narrative too far in an unpleasantly serious direction. Luckily,
however, as adolescently safe as Time
Trap is, it never becomes as annoying as the puzzlingly-labeled
"classic" of the last century — which isn't to say, however, that the
movie overcomes all its flaws well enough to truly be recommendable, or that it
truly offers a satisfying resolution. Trailer to
Time Trap:
For the first ten minutes or so
of Time Trap, the focus of the
narrative indicates to be on an archaeologist named Hopper (stud-muffin Andrew
Wilson, the forgotten and better-looking brother of the more-famous Luke Wilson
and Owen Wilson) and his dog, who are out searching for some hippies that went
lost some decades earlier.
Wait! They aren't just any hippies: they're his
parents and younger sister, who disappeared when he was a wee lad. He finds
their van, and a cowboy seemingly frozen in position inside a cave, and before
you can say "Let's go spelunking," he goes and does just that —
followed a few days later, after no one hears from him again, by his faithful
students Taylor (Reiley McClendon of The
Mine [2012 / trailer]) and Jackie
(Brianne Howey of Viral [2016 / trailer]), inexplicably augmented
by the ragtag trio of Cara (Cassidy Gifford of The Gallows [2015 / trailer] and Ten: Murder Isalnd [2017 / trailer]), her younger sis
Veeves (Olivia Draguicevich), and an annoying pubescent chub named Furby (Max
Wright). Of course they lie to their parents about where they are off to, and
in no time flat do the stupidest thing in the world: rappel down deep into the
cave they think Hopper entered. And thus the adventure starts... 
Okay, now the big spoiler: the
interior of the cave system is a time trap, a nether-region that exists outside
of the time continuum of the rest of the earth, populated by Neanderthals and
Conquistadors and cowboys and the whole Hopper family and more (basically:
anyone who ever entered the cave), where a mere moment is the equivalent of years
outside — a fact that the spelunking quartet needs more than an hour to figure
out. In other words: everything they ever knew above on the surface of Earth
(parents, friends, hometown and country) is long dead, buried, turned to dust,
evolved into almost a new life form.
A rather shattering concept, if you think
about it, that gets brushed aside with one teary hug between Cara and Veeves
and, in the final scene, glossed over even more with a few choice lines of
laughable dialogue, including "Well, it's not quite home, but at least
were all together" and "A lot's changed, but... we're kind of a big
deal around here." (Dunno if most people would be as unaffected as the kids in this film
by the concepts of never seeing anyone they knew ever again and spending the
rest of their lives amidst a future form of humanity that neither looks nor
speaks like they do and, if a reference made earlier in the film is true,
breathes a different atmosphere than they — and that in all likelihood sees them
as an earlier and inferior step in the human evolution. Human zoo time.) 
Okay, don't think and the film is enjoyable
enough for what it is. Time Trap is much more a young-adult-cum-kiddy sci-fi
adventure flick than it is a serious movie, science fiction or otherwise. As
such, it is also a surprisingly well-shot and good-looking for a low budget, independent
feature, and is far from boring. The narrative also follows a certain logic
that (assuming you can even accept the concept of a "time trap" on Earth
and in a Texan cave instead of in Ted Cruz's brain) verges on believable for a
while, although, in all honesty, the quickness with which the kids are willing
to rappel down into the cave (the first four and, later, Furby alone) makes
them all viable candidates for the Darwin
Awards. The special effects are in general pretty good, tension is there on
occasion, and a few people even die — at least for a time. 
But the film also reveals an
inability on the part of the filmmakers to follow their concept to the logical
and tragic outcome that the plot actually demands. Instead, as might be
expected of a kiddy flick, they wimp out and offer a flawed deus ex machine that doesn't hold
any water. The sudden appearance of the save-the-day futuristic technology of
what can only be called "magic wires", for example, renders the whole
interlude with the appearance of the "future man" (Sabin Smith [?] of
Bigfoot Wars [2014 / trailer]) illogical, as the wires could have been
sent down into the cave from the start instead of the future man. Indeed, one
can only wonder why those who control the wires choose to save all our
characters but not their own man...
