Enjoyable style over substance

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 2012)

This movie has a promising premise, if nothing else. The idea of using lifetime as currency has been done before, but it's still uncommon enough that the idea enough makes this movie intriguing. And at first the movie treats its premise well. The urban ghetto of those living one day at a time is portrayed well, making you to feel for its citizens. By the time the rich and immortals are introduced, you have begun to understand the blight of those less fortunate, which in turn causes you to side with them. There are some plot holes and questions about how such a economy can function and why don't the people rebel against it, but you'd need at least a full trilogy to fully delve into those questions, so I don't really blame this movie for not fully examining every little nuance about the world it tries to portray. It's full of stuff as it is.
So, the start is a promising one? So what goes wrong? Well, it stops examining the world and turns into an action film with car chases, gun battles, mooks, criminals and your basic Robin Hood wannabes. It's still not bad, per se, as most of the actors are rather enjoyable (Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried with those humongous eyes of hers were especially pleasant surprises), the cinematography and the score are both above average and the whole movie manages to look extremely stylish and easy on the eyes. But I would have liked to see more of this world. How it works? How it came to be? Why did it came to be? Some of those questions are hinted at, but never answered, while some of them are not even mentioned. I didn't expect the movie to answer all of the questions, but it should have tried to answer as many as it comfortably could. Now it stops way too early.
So, in the end, what did I think of the film? Well, it's intriguing and thought-provoking, yet it falls flat after the first third. It's well-made and enjoyable to watch, but it's also disappointing, there's no denying that. So... if you like scifi thrillers at all, you'll probably enjoy this one just fine. If you want an intellectual film, there's something here for you as well, but don't expect too much. And if you just want a good action film, I'd give this one a watch. It's entertaining all the way through, very much so in fact.