Nerdly » ‘Tim Travers and the Time Traveller’s Paradox’ VOD Review #2

26th Jan2026

‘Tim Travers and the Time Traveller’s Paradox’ VOD Review #2

by Kevin Haldon

Stars: Samuel Dunning, Felicia Day, Keith David, Joel McHale, Danny Trejo, Alex Terzieff, Jhon Goodwin, J.D. McKee | Written and Directed by Stimson Snead

One of my all-time favourite attempts at explaining time-travel on film has always been the low-budget Primer. Well… that was until this quirky new kid popped up in my inbox. Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox is a scrappy, stupidly brainy indie that feels like it was made by people who genuinely love time-travel movies and the sheer absurdity that comes from sitting around with your buds, ten vodkas deep, trying to explain how it might actually work. Directed by Stimson Snead, the film leans hard into paradoxes, causal loops, and that question every time-travel story eventually runs into: what happens when logic just gives up and leaves the room? Oh, and how long would it take before you fell in love with yourself… you know, romantically?

At its core, this is a comedy, but it’s the kind of niche comedy that’s built on philosophy, genre awareness, and a gleeful narrative of one man’s self-destruction. Probably why it sings to me.

Tim Travers (Samuel Dunning) is a brilliant but deeply unhinged physicist who cracks the code and invents time travel in his surprisingly large warehouse on the edge of town, surrounded by a metric ton of plutonium, all while the idea of fixing his coffee machine somehow feels like too big a task. When we first meet him, he accidentally travels exactly one minute into the past and promptly kills his younger self in an attempt to fix a previous mistake and close the loop, naturally creating a paradox that should, depending on your preferred time-travel rules, erase him from existence. But it doesn’t. And once that happens, one impossible outcome raises even more questions, which of course means more tests need to be run.

Soon enough, reality (not just Tim’s) begins to unravel in increasingly ridiculous ways. Hitmen come after Tim for stealing their Plutonium, obviously, multiple versions of Tim pop up, some want to help Tim solve the paradox, some use it as a chance to have an orgy with themselves, others just think it’s fun, and some see it as a chance to figure out the meaning of life (like I say, heady stuff). Causality begins to break down, and the universe itself seems increasingly annoyed by Tim’s sheer hubris and refusal to obey the rules of time and space.

Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox, as a flick, is definitely a bit of me, with its greatest strength being its hyper-aware chaos. It’s a film that knows its audience has seen Back to the Future, Primer, Looper, and Doctor Who. It knows you’ve argued about paradoxes online at 2am. And it absolutely refuses to explain itself in a neat, comforting way. Totally unapologetic in its razor-quick, hyper-intelligent, dialogue-driven scenes, it flirts with fourth-wall-adjacent humour without ever fully breaking it, leans into a deliberately lo-fi, DIY sci-fi aesthetic, and isn’t afraid to make jokes that hinge on understanding how time travel “should” work. If Primer gave you a headache, Tim Travers laughs at you while handing you another paracetamol.

Samuel Dunning’s performance as Tim Travers is the linchpin of the entire movie. And it has to be, because if he didn’t nail every single version of Tim, the absurdity and the oddly bruised lovability of the character just wouldn’t work. Dunning is brilliant, arrogant, and an effortless social disaster, with comic timing that’s second to none. He plays each iteration as increasingly unhinged, and more importantly, he somehow makes Tim watchable despite the fact that he’s objectively kind of a shitbag of a person.

As multiple versions of Tim start to pile up, Dunning subtly tweaks his posture, confidence, and overall energy, making it instantly clear which Tim you’re watching even when the costume barely changes. It’s a genuinely impressive balancing act, and the key reason the film never collapses into total confusion. For my money, it’s also what pushes Tim Travers straight into instant cult classic territory.

The supporting cast, particularly Felicia Day and Joel McHale, brings welcome grounding energy. They act as the audience, reacting to Tim’s nonsense with a mix of disbelief, frustration, and ultimately resignation. Meanwhile, Danny Trejo pops in to just remind us that this whole thing is batshit and reacts appropriately when people start losing their heads.

Underneath the absurdity, Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox has some surprisingly thought-provoking ideas. The danger of intellectual arrogance, Tim isn’t exactly a hero, he’s more of a cautionary tale. The Ian Malcom effect of ‘even if we could, doesn’t mean we should’. Time travel is kind of a metaphor for regret, as Tim’s attempts to fix mistakes only multiply them, a neat reflection of how obsessing over past choices often makes things worse. While the movie doesn’t ram its philosophy down your throat, the message is clear – the universe does not care how clever you think you are.

Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox is a smart, messy, somewhat aggressively nerdy, indie sci-fi comedy that knows exactly who it’s for. It doesn’t aim to be elegant or too emotionally sweeping; it aims to be clever, self-aware, and funny in a way that rewards genre knowledge and nails it on every score. If you like time travel stories that embrace paradox instead of explaining it away, indie sci-fi that pinches way above its weight in terms of budget, cast and credibility, or even if you just like films that argue with their own premise… then this is absolutely worth your time.

Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox is not perfect, but by my standard,s it’s way better than I expected it to be or possibly better than it hoped to be. A delightfully obnoxious paradox of a movie – frustrating, funny, and far smarter than it has any right to be. You would be a fool to miss this one.