Director Andrew Niccol's film brings intrigue, fails to follow through with plot
If there is one thing Andrew Niccol loves to do while directing science-fiction films, it’s present new, intriguing premises that deal with how futuristic technology can impact society.
His debut film “Gattaca” (1997), for instance, explored a society where ones life is determined by generic engineering instead of their education or experience.
“In Time” is just as intriguing but nowhere near as good for one precise reason: the story. At 109 minutes, “In Time” is a science-fiction film that is part stiff action flick, part social allegory and part gangster story that is completely silly with not enough time to get the full explanation behind this society.
“In Time” takes place in a society where time has replaced money as currency. Time can be bought, sold, gambled, traded and stolen. Once everybody turns 25, the greenish clock on their forearms starts to count down the final moments they have left to live, which add up to approximately one year. However, they can earn extra time through working to stay alive.
A person’s class status is completely dependent on much time they have, with the economic classes segregated into “time zones.”
For the working class, it is a constant struggle to keep the clock from hitting zero, with rent costing days and wages paid in hours and minutes. For the rich, life moves in slow motion with centuries of years in the bank, making them nearly immortal and the class differences seem extreme.
Justin Timberlake plays Will Salas, a young working-class man who shares living quarters with his mother (Olivia Wilde — yeah, that Olivia Wilde). Here’s the thing — when people turn 25, they stop aging, so parents and grandparents can look just as young their children and grandchildren.
Are you keeping up? Because Niccol seems to demand a lot of explanation in this film.
One night, Will meets a wealthy man at a bar who decides he is tired of living and kills himself, but not before transferring his significant remaining time to Will.
This story of class warfare gears toward a revenge plot when Will’s mother dies after her time expires and Will moves to the wealthy “time zone” district to confront the rich about the constant increase in the cost of living.
The movie then changes tone when Will kidnaps the daughter (Amanda Seyfried) of a time mogul (“Mad Men’s” Vincent Kartheiser) after Timekeepers (time cops) attempt to arrest Will for “stealing” his newfound time.
They immediately fall in love and become a futuristic Bonnie and Clyde/Robin Hood team, stealing time from the rich and giving it the poor. It’s around this moment when director Niccol abandons all the seriousness within the film and continues giving Will and Sylvia comedic lines as if he himself has realized how preposterous the story has become.
The main problem with “In Time” is basically the same problem with previous science-fiction films like “The Island” (2005) and “Limitless” (2011).
It presents a very interesting premise, then follows a heavy-handed story filled with many plot holes and some irrelevant points, such as the Timekeeper leader (Cillian Murphy) mentioning that he knew Will’s father and not making a point as to how it affects the story.
Timberlake and Seyfried are the other problems. Both are more than capable actors with strong on-screen potential, but in this movie they aren’t given any more to do than act as the good-looking action star and the equally attractive love interest. On top of that, the romance between these two feels too contrived with no sense of development.
Timberlake can handle all of the action scenes and the flirting with Seyfried with finesse, but he doesn’t do as well with the more dramatic scenes. From what films from earlier this year like “Green Hornet” and “Conan the Barbarian” have taught us, it takes more than constant action sequences to make an action hero worth caring about.
“In Time” is a complete misfire of an intriguing premise that lacks a sensible story and is poorly delivered. It is, however, the perfect movie to make a million time-related jokes that equally reflect the disappointment of the film.