Laughably awful

Rating: 2/10 (15 December 2013)

As many have said already, this is a great idea but poorly executed. There is zero tension or excitement, and only a few minutes in when JT's mother is down to her last few seconds of life and racing towards him as fast as she can, she might as well be running in a vacuum because no-one cares if she makes it or not and JT's unbelievable "crying" when she drops dead in his arms was so hard to believe in I laughed out loud. There are countless movies with stirring scenes when the main character is stripped of everything and kneels, tears streaming, in pouring rain/desert dust/ruined landscape, vowing NEVER to be put down again (Scarlett O'Hara for one) but "In Time" takes a time-honoured device, uses it too soon, messes it up and throws it away.
And so it begins on its relentless downward spiral, with the googly-eyed Amanda Seyfried, as vacant as a plastic doll, playing the role of stupid pointless bimbo being dragged along by the hero. Even Replicants have more personality. Nobody here seemed as though they were trying, and don't get me started on the super-wooden Alex Pettyfer with his London bloke accent. Maybe it was a deliberate decision to have the desperate masses with their lives running out before their eyes seem mechanical and unreal, while the villains (the rich, the timekeeper) are infinitely more real. Perhaps they alone can afford the time to develop a real character.
Vincent Kartheiser gives a slightly detached performance (having clearly placed his feelings in a bank vault along with his centuries) but where we might reasonably expect some menace we get very little. He is even quite amiable for someone who must by now have seen it all and has the economic freedom not to have to suffer fools gladly. He has been more chilling in certain episodes of Mad Men, so blame must be placed on the script and the careless flabby direction.
Cillian Murphy does a good job with stupid dialogue, giving his performance a world-weary spin that indicates he just can't believe what he is being asked to spout. Occasionally he wanders around with his hands clasped behind his back thinking deeply, but this unfortunately does not result in him questioning the power of those he represents, nor the system he upholds on their behalf. And really he needs to, because it is so precariously designed a criminal five year old could see opportunity in the yawning gaps.
For an elite group of people to apparently rely on only one timekeeper to keep things ticking along in the various time zones (and he constantly operating on dwindling minutes - when do we ever see him with more than about 45 minutes between life and oblivion?) they must have the utmost faith in his ability when he is little more than a time gambler himself. Every step he takes away from his car is tempting fate, and I would not sit easily at my boardroom table in the rich district if he was the only guarantee of my safety and continuing time-wealthy existence.
Justin Timberlake is just OK, but then he isn't really asked to give more than that, with a storyline and silly script that doesn't stretch his abilities, other than the ability to take his shirt off and peer through dirty windows in between bouts of running and driving. My criticism is reserved for the writer/director (whose name I have already forgotten and cannot be bothered to check) and for whichever individual did not dispense some well-needed discipline in his direction.
Other than that, the truly terrible Amanda Seyfried needs singling out for her empty one-dimensional "performance", which was so bad I will make a point of avoiding her in anything else she ever appears in. Sorry.