Worth watching, on balance, I think

Rating: 7/10 (16 March 2012)

I had In Time on in the background as my in-flight movie while I was doing "stuff" on my laptop, as I felt it was the right level of attention for a film which hadn't really received enough hype or recommendation to be really worthy of my attention.
And that's about right. The film has an interesting concept, and the production spend is good, but it feels like an interesting concept that has been 'dumbed down' and not properly explored, in order to fit into a big-budget action flick.
However, the day later, the more I thought about it, the more the concept grew on me. I realised that while the movie didn't really explore the concept of time as a currency as much as, say, an independent movie might, it did at least present them.... And with them, the underlying social inequalities present in today's society.
If you read the film in this way - as a metaphor for current social and political challenges, such as the fact that billions of people in poverty do live day-to-day, with a bad day meaning death from malnutrition - then it's a powerful film. There are also lots of time- money set piece situations that range from fun to thought-provoking. It's just that this potential underlying message is lost in the screenplay and production style.
On balance - yes, this film is worth watching for those reasons, while the big budget production makes it easy enough to watch, whatever you take away from it.