Here’s a wild take on the time travel genre that tiptoes the line between silly and sincere beautifully. In my notes, I compared it to Everything Everywhere All at Once as made by TikTokers, but even that feels reductive when the result is this heartfelt.

Escape From the 21st Century is, at heart, a coming-of-age story that happens to involve time travel. Like the best films about growing up, it understands how these things don’t happen in some singular magical moment. Instead, we come of age over and over again, if we’re lucky.

In 1999, three 18-year olds spend the last days of the millennium scrapping, wasting time, and wondering about their future. One day, through a series of events too silly to get into, they end up covered in chemicals which gives the trio the power to travel back and forth through time by sneezing.

How any of it works is a mystery, and you really have to go with the flow on this one. It makes sense on an emotional level, but rarely a logical one.

Whatever the reason, the boys soon realize their futures aren’t all that sunny. In fact, things are so bad that once the novelty wears off, the trio decides to use their newfound powers to change things in the past. Of course, as always with time travel, the results are never what you’d expect.

I won’t spoil how things unravel, except to say that I couldn’t guess where the film would go next. It has a demented glee about the way it deconstructs, builds, and leans on established tropes. At times, it will over-explain a time travel mechanic so thoroughly that the explanation itself becomes the joke. Then, as we expect something similar moments later, it plays the scene completely earnest.

Granted, some will find the hyper-energetic approach immensely tiresome. Around the midway point, I found myself out of breath. Luckily, first time writer/director Yang Li doesn’t overextend his hand, and instead knows precisely when to ease off the accelerator.

By the final act, Escape From the 21st Century discovers a surprisingly tender and poignant emotional core that makes the madness worthwhile. It might be saccharine and blunt, but there’s something deeply moving about how the film wears its heart on its sleeve.

Supremely funny, often exciting, and unexpectedly moving, Escape From the 21st Century is a wild sci-fi ride that has to be seen to be believed.