“In Time” shows a future were currency is measured by time not money. That is the premise for this poorly-titled film that invites the constant “stolen seconds” pun that runs throughout the movie. It’s an interesting concept and it shows how society is divided between those who have centuries versus those who only have minutes. The movie moral of living life for the moment is the obvious highlight, but it doesn’t mean the rest of the movie’s ideas won’t make you think.
Justin Timberlake stars as Will Salas, a young man who turns into a futuristic Robin Hood stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. He lives simply trying to help give his mother, (Olivia Wilde) a better life. In his world, time begins at 25. The aging stops and you have one more year to live unless you earn more time by working and if you don’t, all that’s left to do is count down the minutes until you die.
In a twist of fate, Will finds himself with more years than he knows what to do with that are given to him from a man who just wants to die. Plans to take his mother into the elite time zone, New Greenwich, where people have time stocked up fall short when she reaches Will a second too late. He sets off for New Greenwich alone where he meets robotic-looking Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried), whose father controls the time markets which ensures he and his family are never without. Of course, as with the cliché rich-girl-is-bored story plot, all the time in the world doesn’t mean that she is truly living.
It is the introduction of Sylvia to the story that pulls the movie down. Socio-economic status is a strong theme as is the ideal of being immortal, but both are watered down by the romance turned Bonnie and Clyde plot change that makes the movie cheesier than necessary. Somewhere Cyndi Lauper plays softly in the background (or this is what is imagined in my head). Enter the timekeeper police led by Raymond Leon (played by an always creepy-looking Cillian Murphy) who notices the sudden shift of time zones and believes Will to have murdered for the time he now has.
Now on the run, Will and Sylvia try to find ways to “create balance” in society so that people without time can have the weeks they need and those who want to be immortal are taught that death is just another part of life. It turns into a hokey heist game with a love story that bores. The basic plot line of “In Time” is a good one but how it plays out doesn’t reach the full promise of its potential. Timberlake should stick to music and comedy because as an action vigilante he seems to be a parody of himself. For people who are so concerned with conserving their time, they sure do waste a lot of it.