Andy's Anachronisms
Time Travel Film Reviews

Norman's Awesome Experience (1988)
Also Known As: A Switch in Time

Directed by Paul Donovan

Summary

Introducing Norman (Tom McCamus), a precocious physics assistant at the Geneva Technical Institute. Best described as a rockabilly misfit who sports a ducktail with his lab jacket, Norman yearns for some radical thinking among his stuffy colleagues. Confiding to Dr. Nobbelmeyer (Brian Downey), a slightly scrambled professor, Norman wonders aloud about the more imaginative uses the Institute’s high-technology could be put to.

Enter Vogue model Erika Strong (Laurie Paton), and her volatile lover Umberto (Jacques Lussier). After coaxing Norman to let her pose for a chic layout within the lab’s secret confines, the trio is alerted of a terrible catastrophe…the unhinged Dr. Nobbelmeyer has locked himself in the control room and plans to put Norman’s theories to the test! A blinding explosion rocks the lab, and the hapless threesome are zapped back in time. About two thousand years to be exact, at the height of the Roman Empire.

What follows is a rollicking adventure as Norman weaves twentieth century know-how into a strategy for freedom, and leads an oppressed village against the legions of Rome, the rule of Nero and the fickle hand of fate itself. Enchanting, warm and wildly funny, Normanicus turns time travel and the drama of history into thrilling comedy of epic proportions!

This synopsis is borrowed from www.ifctv.ca

Review

Recentely aired on the Independent Film Channel in Canada, this late 1980s sci-fi comedy actually preceeds Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure by at least one year despite the similarity in their titles.

Released in Canada as A Switch in Time, this movie features Canadian Tom McCamus as Norman. McCamus a stalwart of Canadian theatre began making the transition to film in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Check back at a later date for a full review.

Summary Posted 2001-09-20


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