First order of business is making sure Quaid doesn't die in a fire. Then, the two must work together to stop a serial killer from slaying Quaid's wife. Each thing Quaid does differently changes Caviesel's present-day reality, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. The premise is pretty good, but it starts getting silly once Quaid and Caviesel (living in the same house 30 years apart) start using a sideboard storage compartment to send each other physical items, like some sort of time-travel fax machine. The ending goes for Field of Dreams-style heartwarmth, which resolves the film into a therapeutic tone of "father and son" catharsis … all but obliterating any sense of this having been a sci-fi flick. Perhaps they can make a sequel in which a father and son use CB radios to communicate, the son being in 1978 and the father being in 1975. Or how about one where the father and son change events via time-traveling communication from the top of that "Green Acres" telephone pole?
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