appalling nonsense -- a perfume ad stretched out to two hours

Rating: 2/10 (20 March 2014)

This is a shockingly bad feature film, considering the budget and talent involved. The sci-fi dystopia it portrays is unbelievable and poorly explained. The economics of the world are downright absurd. But even if you don't care about that, it features an endless parade of actors doing their darnedest to be non-emotive and devoid of personality.
The premise seems to have been used as an excuse to put together an ensemble of pretty 20-somethings, who are working hard in every single scene to be sultry and jaded. Sultry and jaded are okay for a 30-second perfume ad, but they don't work so well to keep us involved through two hours of sci-fi clichés.
Cillian Murphy's relentless policeman is perhaps the most inadequately explained character. We're never provided with any motive for his determination to prop up an outrageously inhumane and plainly unsustainable regime -- except perhaps that, well, he's been doing it for a long time now, so, I guess he, like, feels some sort of force of habit or something.
Timberlake and Seyfried have shown signs of real talent in other productions. But any such talent has been carefully hidden under wraps here. Like everyone else, they come across as sullen, slow-witted and drab.
The second star was awarded only because the movie makes some amusing use of various locations in Los Angeles -- with a weird cameo from the casino in Monte Carlo -- and because I liked the way the production designer enjoyed remaking ugly cars from the '70s as high-style vehicles of the future.