Imagine if people didn’t age past their 25th birthday and from that day forward they had to add time to their personal accounts to stay alive. But, at the same time, everything in the world that people did, used and bought cost, not money, but time, that came off of their personal accounts. Time would be the most valuable thing in the world – so valuable that people would steal and kill for it.
That’s the interesting premise of “In Time”, which starts out as a promising sci-fi action/thriller but quickly turns into a…waste of time.
Justin Timberlake stars as Will. Since he’s 28 he’s living day-to-day, trying to earn time, as a citizen of the “Ghetto”, the area of this futuristic city where the poor people live. He resents the rich people, who live in East Greenwich, and who possess all the time, many of whom have enough time to live forever. So Will comes-up with a plan to play Robin Hood – steal time from the rich and give it to the poor.
He meets Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), the daughter of the most powerful man in the city (he has control over most of the time). She eventually joins Will in the effort to change the system. But, of course, this is illegal so the outlaws are constantly being chased by the police, also known as Timekeepers.
After the first 30-minutes or so the concept of “In Time” really starts to get old because the film lacks any suspense or excitement to keep you interested. There’s another group of bad guys who are also chasing the “heroes”, but you don’t really care if they get caught, when they get caught or how they get caught.
And the script has a ton of holes in it, making some of the events in the plot ridiculous. For a movie like this to work all the elements have to fit together perfectly. Here things happen simply to make the story move forward, even if they don’t make any sense.
Timberlake is o.k., but he had a very busy 2011 and probably should have passed on this role. He and Seyfried are fine together, but their comic dialogue really doesn’t fit the rest of the movie.
“In Time” does deserve one award, however. It contains more scenes of characters running than probably any movie in history, and that includes movie about running. Unless they used doubles the stars deserve a lot of credit for being in such good shape.
“In Time” is rated PG-13 for action violence and some adult content and language. I can’t recommend anyone spending their time (or money) to watch it.
On “The Official Kid Critic Report Card“, “In Time” gets a D+. It was one of 2011’s biggest disappointments.