Taken from www.relentlessreviews.com
This weekend I had the opportunity to sample Andrew Niccol's futuristic thriller In Time, starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, and Olivia Wilde (because what doesn't feature Olivia Wilde nowadays?). The premise is that at some indeterminate point in the future scientists have genetically engineered humans to stop aging at 25, however giving them only one additional year of life after 25 unless they have the cash to buy additional "time" for themselves, effectively granting the wealthy and powerful thousands of years of life while relegating the destitute to a life of constantly checking the clock imprinted on their arm for fear of dropping over dead. The world is relegated into "time zones", segregating the population into the affluent and the impoverished to keep the poor from spoiling the comfortable, safe environment that immortals demand. Years, hours, minutes, and seconds are the only currency and the entire global economy functions of people working for more time to add to their lives (or stealing it from other people). Its an interesting enough premise and the film sets this up reasonably well without spending too much time of the science of it, but I'll get into that later.*
I'm going to get this out of the way right now and say that this is an allegorical representation of the inequity of wealth in America. The rich have thousands of years of life to spend on frivolity and hedonistic pleasures while the poor live day to day, unable to simply walk from one place to another or sleep in for a single day for fear of "timing out". Some giant hegemonic power artificially regulates inflation globally to ensure that those in the ghettos will never have more than a day on their arms. Rather than functioning like a community the poor are constantly either pitted against each other or trying to avoid their neighbors for fear of having their own limited time stolen by some desperate soul with seconds left of their own. Niccol manages to play on these modern themes without being too preachy about it, although any American with the wits granted to a catfish will recognize this for what it is. And as much as I detest interjecting modern social commentary into my science fiction movies I actually didn't mind this: it set up a quasi-believable framework for the characters? altruistic motivations to develop.
The film does lose me though from time to time (no pun intended? seriously none), mostly as the Third Act drags to a crawling jumble of events and dialogues stitched together by extended scenes of stone-faced Timekeeper Cillian Murphy either sprinting or driving after the aforementioned protagonists while they begin a highly implausible Robin Hood-esque crusade to steal time from the rich and give it to the poor in an effort to ?bring down the system? by destabilizing the global time market. During this chunk of the movie the characters? greater purpose evolves in an irksome and befuddled way (something to do with Timberlake?s father?) that very much pulled me out of the movie at key points. Also there?s some unresolved business with the ?minutemen? (thugs and gangsters sanctioned by ?the man? to rob people in the ghetto who accumulate enough time to escape their time zone? or something) that sees a conclusion, but the revelations it elicits are outweighed by the problems this spree of robbery proposes.
(*Later has happened)
Let me go all nerd on you for a second and talk about science, most specifically the purpose of explaining the ?science? in science fiction. In some movies a large amount of exposition on this topic is required because A) The functioning of a certain technological Magoffin is integral to the advancement or resolution of the plotline (think Rise of the Planet of the Apes) or to B) Provide plausible context to the fictitious world the film is taking place in (think Inception). The technology behind this whole genetically-engineered-to-stop-aging-at-25-and-also-inexplicably-have-numbers-on-your-arm-that-slowly-countdown-towards-your-inevitable-death malarkey ostensibly doesn?t need to be explained. In fact it?s amazingly simple, so you?d think it doesn?t need to be elaborated on, right? Well that?s where you?re wrong, because In Time firmly falls into category B, a fact which becomes increasingly and inescapably obvious during that troublesome Third Act. If scientists can genetically engineer you to stop ageing at 25 why put such a ridiculously stringent restriction on your overall lifespan? Is ?time? an actual resource that there is a limited quantity of or is it an artificial currency instituted as a form of mass population control allowing the affluent few to live forever with sufficient resources to exist comfortably? If that is the case, then how could such a global regulation have gone into effect that so drastically and obviously culls the lower class? The film?s retro-yet minimalistic visual aesthetic (and the fact that the oldest person introduced in the film is only roughly 100) makes it virtually impossible to determine how much time has transpired since this system was put into place, which robs the film of any real context and slowly eroded my suspension of disbelief. If this vagueness on the part of the science was a deliberate choice to cleanly advance the social-inequity metaphor then I feel it was a poor choice, and since we?re on the topic of visuals I frankly feel that the film would have benefited from a more futuristic setting anyway (although I know Niccol has a hard-on for minimalism-retro a la Gattaca.) Generally speaking the farther in the future you set a film the more the audience is able to stretch their disbelief.
Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried have believable chemistry on screen without being obnoxious although Cillian Murphy?s considerable chops go largely untapped as he either chases the fugitive time-bandits across rooftops or stares blankly at the camera while delivering his lines with as little vocal inflection as humanly possible (of course I still love the guy to pieces). It?s a competent action film with a unique enough concept and it tactfully avoids making too many dreadful time-related puns (which I doubt I would have had the restraint to refrain from had I been writing it).
Relentless Rating Richter Scale ? 3.6
5 ? I would gladly quit my job to watch this movie full-time. If you haven?t seen this movie by the time you finish this sentence we are no longer friends.
4 ? Pretty decent. Not worth trampling your own mother in a rush to the theatre but definitely something you want to see.
3 ? Not too shabby. Is it worth the price of a movie ticket? Well? maybe the matinee showing. If not you can catch it on Netflix.
2 ? Meh. TBS will no doubt have a million bajillion showings of it. Catch it then if you have nothing else to do with your day.
1 ? I would rather watch a Gigli marathon while being beaten with a pillowcase full of broken glass and spitting cobras.
This weekend I had the opportunity to sample Andrew Niccol's futuristic thriller In Time, starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, and Olivia Wilde (because what doesn't feature Olivia Wilde nowadays?). The premise is that at some indeterminate point in the future scientists have genetically engineered humans to stop aging at 25, however giving them only one additional year of life after 25 unless they have the cash to buy additional "time" for themselves, effectively granting the wealthy and powerful thousands of years of life while relegating the destitute to a life of constantly checking the clock imprinted on their arm for fear of dropping over dead. The world is relegated into "time zones", segregating the population into the affluent and the impoverished to keep the poor from spoiling the comfortable, safe environment that immortals demand. Years, hours, minutes, and seconds are the only currency and the entire global economy functions of people working for more time to add to their lives (or stealing it from other people). Its an interesting enough premise and the film sets this up reasonably well without spending too much time of the science of it, but I'll get into that later.*
I'm going to get this out of the way right now and say that this is an allegorical representation of the inequity of wealth in America. The rich have thousands of years of life to spend on frivolity and hedonistic pleasures while the poor live day to day, unable to simply walk from one place to another or sleep in for a single day for fear of "timing out". Some giant hegemonic power artificially regulates inflation globally to ensure that those in the ghettos will never have more than a day on their arms. Rather than functioning like a community the poor are constantly either pitted against each other or trying to avoid their neighbors for fear of having their own limited time stolen by some desperate soul with seconds left of their own. Niccol manages to play on these modern themes without being too preachy about it, although any American with the wits granted to a catfish will recognize this for what it is. And as much as I detest interjecting modern social commentary into my science fiction movies I actually didn't mind this: it set up a quasi-believable framework for the characters? altruistic motivations to develop.
The film does lose me though from time to time (no pun intended? seriously none), mostly as the Third Act drags to a crawling jumble of events and dialogues stitched together by extended scenes of stone-faced Timekeeper Cillian Murphy either sprinting or driving after the aforementioned protagonists while they begin a highly implausible Robin Hood-esque crusade to steal time from the rich and give it to the poor in an effort to ?bring down the system? by destabilizing the global time market. During this chunk of the movie the characters? greater purpose evolves in an irksome and befuddled way (something to do with Timberlake?s father?) that very much pulled me out of the movie at key points. Also there?s some unresolved business with the ?minutemen? (thugs and gangsters sanctioned by ?the man? to rob people in the ghetto who accumulate enough time to escape their time zone? or something) that sees a conclusion, but the revelations it elicits are outweighed by the problems this spree of robbery proposes.
(*Later has happened)
Let me go all nerd on you for a second and talk about science, most specifically the purpose of explaining the ?science? in science fiction. In some movies a large amount of exposition on this topic is required because A) The functioning of a certain technological Magoffin is integral to the advancement or resolution of the plotline (think Rise of the Planet of the Apes) or to B) Provide plausible context to the fictitious world the film is taking place in (think Inception). The technology behind this whole genetically-engineered-to-stop-aging-at-25-and-also-inexplicably-have-numbers-on-your-arm-that-slowly-countdown-towards-your-inevitable-death malarkey ostensibly doesn?t need to be explained. In fact it?s amazingly simple, so you?d think it doesn?t need to be elaborated on, right? Well that?s where you?re wrong, because In Time firmly falls into category B, a fact which becomes increasingly and inescapably obvious during that troublesome Third Act. If scientists can genetically engineer you to stop ageing at 25 why put such a ridiculously stringent restriction on your overall lifespan? Is ?time? an actual resource that there is a limited quantity of or is it an artificial currency instituted as a form of mass population control allowing the affluent few to live forever with sufficient resources to exist comfortably? If that is the case, then how could such a global regulation have gone into effect that so drastically and obviously culls the lower class? The film?s retro-yet minimalistic visual aesthetic (and the fact that the oldest person introduced in the film is only roughly 100) makes it virtually impossible to determine how much time has transpired since this system was put into place, which robs the film of any real context and slowly eroded my suspension of disbelief. If this vagueness on the part of the science was a deliberate choice to cleanly advance the social-inequity metaphor then I feel it was a poor choice, and since we?re on the topic of visuals I frankly feel that the film would have benefited from a more futuristic setting anyway (although I know Niccol has a hard-on for minimalism-retro a la Gattaca.) Generally speaking the farther in the future you set a film the more the audience is able to stretch their disbelief.
Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried have believable chemistry on screen without being obnoxious although Cillian Murphy?s considerable chops go largely untapped as he either chases the fugitive time-bandits across rooftops or stares blankly at the camera while delivering his lines with as little vocal inflection as humanly possible (of course I still love the guy to pieces). It?s a competent action film with a unique enough concept and it tactfully avoids making too many dreadful time-related puns (which I doubt I would have had the restraint to refrain from had I been writing it).
Relentless Rating Richter Scale ? 3.6
5 ? I would gladly quit my job to watch this movie full-time. If you haven?t seen this movie by the time you finish this sentence we are no longer friends.
4 ? Pretty decent. Not worth trampling your own mother in a rush to the theatre but definitely something you want to see.
3 ? Not too shabby. Is it worth the price of a movie ticket? Well? maybe the matinee showing. If not you can catch it on Netflix.
2 ? Meh. TBS will no doubt have a million bajillion showings of it. Catch it then if you have nothing else to do with your day.
1 ? I would rather watch a Gigli marathon while being beaten with a pillowcase full of broken glass and spitting cobras.