Chris O’Dowd, of TV sit-com The IT Crowd, gets more than he bargained for when he pops down his local with a couple of mates in this sci-fi comedy.

In fact, despite a few big budget effect shots (and it looks like the budget did really only stretch to a few), the main problem with this is that it feels like a TV sit-com. O’Dowd’s dopey, loveable persona carries the film but his character, Ray, is essentially just a different spin on his IT Crowd character, Roy (one hopes that writer Jamie Mathieson was conscious of this when he named him). One is a geek obsessed with science fiction, the other a geek obsessed with computers.

The film starts with several scenes of unremarkable gags as Ray and his friends, fellow sci-fi obsessive Toby (Wootton) and laddish Pete (Kelly), banter about life, films and beer. So far so unremarkable. When one of the characters utters the line “how hard is it to make a film that doesn’t suck?” it is hard not to snigger in the knowledge that the movie might be answering its own question; quite hard, apparently.

But as soon as the science fiction element is introduced things pick up. The local pub has a time leak in the gents’ toilet. Every time our heroes go in they come out at a different time, sometimes on the same evening, sometimes in the distant past or far flung future. They also encounter Cassie (Faris, presumably brought in to give this some Hollywood appeal), an inept time traveller from the future who acts as Ray’s love interest.

Darker elements are introduced, the characters, when taken out of their normal situation, mesh more and the jokes actually seem to become funnier.

Of the supporting cast Wootton is mostly unremarkable playing a character that seems to exist purely as a plot device although he steps up his performance in the finale when he is suddenly given something to do. Faris, meanwhile, is endearingly muddle-headed in the scenes she features in.

It is Kelly though, already carving a niche for himself in the sci-fi genre after memorable guest performances in Doctor Who and BBC Three’s Being Human, who brings real energy to the film. He’s the cool member of the gang, suddenly thrown into a world that, unlike the others, he does not understand with devastating consequences.

The script is flawed with a number of plot holes and an annoying insistence on tipping its hat to geeks in the audience by co-opting dialogue from sci-fi films of yesteryear. I noted lines from Aliens and Flash Gordon but I’m sure there were more kicking about in there somewhere. But first time feature writer Mathison’s more subtle, satirical touches (at one point Ray notes it’s weird that everyone from the future seems to be American) and convincing character development points to promising things for the future.

Although the small cast and limited locations add to the feeling that this would really be better suited to the television there is something extremely likeable about this story of love, friendship and out of date bar snacks.