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School Dorks Take On Time Travel

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By KATHY BLUMENSTOCK, The Washington Post

Published: January 24, 2008

In high school, the cool crowd rules. The outcasts sit alone in the lunchroom, overlooked and certain that the world is a miserable place.

But in "Minutemen," Disney Channel's newest original film, airing at 8 p.m. Friday, three decidedly uncool seniors at the fictional Summerton High School find a way to change their world, thanks to a homemade time machine.

Tumbling into a colorful vortex, Virgil (Jason Dolley), Charlie (Luke Benward) and Zeke (Nicholas Braun) revisit the recent past, tinkering with conversations and embarrassing events just enough to help their friends and assure their own popularity.

"They can only go back a maximum of two days," said Dolley, who found he could relate to his character's fun-loving nature. "Once they're back there, they have a window. They can only stay for 10 minutes to correct the social injustices or turn the jokes around."

Steven R. McQueen plays the football hero, a childhood friend of Virgil's who has grown away from him. McQueen said filming "Minutemen" gave him a chance to experience something he had missed: Like many young actors, he wasn't enrolled in high school.

"So I had a great time feeling like I was in high school, hanging around with the extras and enjoying the fun parts of being there," he said.

With a name like that, you know he must be related to the legendary screen actor who died in 1980. The younger McQueen, 19, acknowledges that comparisons to his grandfather are inevitable.

"People mention it all the time," said the actor, who spent a season on the drama "Everwood" in 2005-06. "I guess being compared to him could be a burden, but I use it to help me give my all."

"Minutemen" follows the adventurers and their classmates, including a cheerleader (Chelsea Staub). Wearing bright white snowsuits and goggles to shield their identities, the Minutemen exercise their own form of time management as they deal with a locker room prank, affect the outcome of a big game and dodge the principal (J.P. Manoux), who's suspicious of those "snowsuit guys."

And then there are all those government agents lurking around town, tracking the Minutemen's activities because Charlie apparently hacked into NASA's computers to steal part of the time machine formula.

"Every time you deal with time-space travel, something will always go wrong," Dolley said. "And things do start to go wrong."

McQueen called the movie "a cute little sci-fi action romance story" that has wide audience appeal.

"Younger girls will like the love story. For the boys, there is the time-travel adventure, and even for parents, there is moral value," McQueen said.

For his role as a star player on the Summerton Rams, McQueen had to learn the game, working with the real-life team that appears in the film's football sequences. He said he enjoyed the experience so much he now plays running back in a league on his own.

Staub said she was fascinated by the concept of the time machine.

"Everybody wants to go back and change something because even a few minutes can change your life," she said, adding that the Minutemen "aren't going back centuries to fix historic events."

ON TELEVISION

Minutemen

WHERE: Disney Channel

WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday

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