In Time

What a fun thriller! Not only does it have a very intriguing premise, but there's a ton of eye candy and countless exciting action scenes. Why does it have so much eye candy? Because everyone in the movie is young. It takes place in an alternate universe where time has replaced money as a currency and everyone's time "runs out" at twenty-five. Once you hit twenty-five, the timer on your wrist starts ticking down. At work, you earn time instead of money, so you are literally working for your life. If your timer ever reaches zero, you drop dead.

And while yes, there are ugly twenty-five-year-olds, this movie doesn't feature any of them. Everyone is young and good looking. Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Matt Bomer, Olivia Wilde (who plays Justin's mom!), and other beautiful people grace the screen. There's a definite class distinction, with the "wealthy" betting thousands of hours at the casinos and the "poor" borrowing time from their neighbors just to make it to the next day. When Justin decides to spread the wealth (with the help from his new main squeeze), he's at risk from the wealthy people who want to stop him, the poor who are desperate for time, and the cops.

I love this movie and own a well-worn DVD copy. I saw it in the theaters, I watch it at home for fun, and it's still very entertaining. If you missed it because you thought it would be a cheap thriller, think again. It's one of the better ones.

I had the privilege of watching this movie earlier than most people in the world because its released early in Malaysia, to profit from Deepavali public holiday crowd on 26 Oct.

The story is simple. Time is the commodity in the future. But the best part is how the filmmaker show the audience how to use this commodity in normal everyday life. How much time you pay for certain things, where to get extra time, etc. Simply brilliant.

I never cared too much about Timberlake before, but his performance in Social Network caught my attention, and In Time further proves that he can act. The pace can be quite a drag here and there, but its full of suspense all the way, many chase scenes and all.

For those of you who are tired of prequels, sequels, three-quels, superheros, robots, aliens, etc, give In Time a shot, its definitely worth your time. The most original movie this year. 109 minutes is a commodity well-spent.

Everyone is on a clock. What keeps the general population from devolving into id-driven mobs is the fact that no one knows how much time they have left on theirs. If you had a constant reminder on your forearm, however, you might simply go about your life in a desperate attempt to prolong it. Or not.

Will Salas (played by Justin Timberlake) is a 28-year-old factory worker whose one year clock started and aging stopped, like everyone else in the film, when he turned 25. He and his 50 year-old mother Rachel (played by Olivia Wilde) live in the ghettos of Dayton hoping to earn and save enough to at least see the next day. All while wages in the ghetto are constantly going down and the cost of living is constantly going up. Then, while out drinking with his friend Borel (played by Johnny Galecki), he learns of a man with more than a century left on his clock who has unadvisedly advertised his good fortune while in the same bar as Will and Borel. A local time-thief enters the picture and, rather than retreat like his friend did and advised him to do, Will comes to the aid of the fortunate stranger. While saving his life was all for naught, the stranger gives Will all the time left on his clock before allowing the time on his own clock to run out while he's sitting on a bridge overlooking a dry river basin.

"Time is money" was a phrase first coined by Benjamin Franklin. While the idea of reversing that concept to "money is time" is interesting, I don't believe the cast was up to the challenge of exploring it. Whatever success Justin Timberlake might've had in supporting roles, he doesn't have what it takes to be the leading man. Amanda Seyfried, whose role has her playing off Timberlake for a lot of the film, is another professional whose appeal tends to overshadow her abilities for some reason. Perhaps an independent production could provide actors with genuine talent, who are young enough to look the part, but this is closer some sort of CW melodrama.

If there's something instantly captivating about a movie - it's when the idea's new. In "In Time", the plot revolves around the interesting idea that time is the new currency and rules the world like the Dollar once used to. The poor must fight to live for a few days, the rich are practically immortal.

This could have become a new scifi milestone, if it wasn't for the poorly executed script, stiff acting and highly predictable plot. The scenes are thrown together and feel like reenacted from typical "Bonnie and Clyde", "Romeo and Juliet", two against the world and enemy of the state type movies. None of the scenes seem original or well executed. Actions and reactions by the actors seem unnatural or rushed, unrealistic even. Some character development just feels plain wrong. Not because of the plot, but because the characters don't seem to be portrayed very well. Although a scifi movie, realism is still necessary. "In time" shows a world that is not believable and many scenes seem straight stupid.

It's not a great movie. If not for the cool plot idea and the likable main character, it wouldn't be worth watching at all. But if you want to see a world, albeit fake, where people fight over time to survive, give it a go.

A very unusual film screen-play, well written and shot, don't expect any CGI effects here, this is a very down to Earth sci-fi that bears more than a passing resemblance to our current problem with world banks. Surprisingly Justin Timberlake puts in a very professional performance, and not a song in sight, Timberlake carries the part with a very grounded performance being so laid back that he is almost horizontal. Amanda Seyfried submits a polished performance although her make-up makes her look like one of those Japanese animations of what a European looks like, complete with over-sized eyes. The film holds the attention from the first to the last frame and provokes some emotion from the viewer on several levels. Certainly worth a watch, not quite a Rolex, but much better than a Timex.