So Wooden You'll Reach for Thompson's® WaterSeal®

Rating: 2/10 (29 October 2011)

In Time comes from writer/director Andrew Niccol and tells the tale of one Will Salas (Justin Timberlake), a man who is wrongfully accused of murdering a wealthy man. This isn't murder by our standards but the running off with of a borrowed time in a future where everyone stops aging at 25 but must work to earn more minutes.
Will travels across "time zones" that serve as tollbooths separating the poor from the rich. Can't have any low on time mingling with the immortals. In the affluent city of New Greenwich, Will encounters debutante Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried). In a confrontation with a Timekeeper (Cillian Murphy), i.e. cop, Will runs off with Sylvia and sets out on a quest to make those in power pay.
There are better movies in this genre, and one of them is written and directed by the same guy who made this movie. In fact, In Time is a crappy knock-off of Gattaca. Don't believe me? In Gattaca a man goes up against a class system that exploits genetics. He acquires a redhead, is chased by a cop, and drives a vintage auto. The differences are that Gattaca doesn't halfheartedly attempt to be an action movie, Gattaca has a quality lead actor, and Gattaca makes sense.
Unfortunate for everyone who sees In Time, a host of problems prevent it from being even a shell of what could have been. Timberlake is simply not a movie star. He isn't believable and his thin character is not likable. Being in a dystopian future everyone is a stoic incapable of expression, naturally. In Time is played so stiff with seriousness that the lack of humanity prevents and audience from caring a lick for anyone.
The actions scenes are sparse and nothing inventive. There's a car chase, albeit a brief one. There are guns, which many characters seem to be capable of using, but not with action movie gravitas.
The technology hindering so many is not explained in a satisfying manner. Using time as currency presents a variety of problems upon investigation. Money is already applied to time in our world so the metaphor is too blunt. Who mandated these laws, witnessing a birth, or attempting a birth outside of the system are never mentioned.
The problem imposed on the characters of In Time is all that is ever talked about. You'd think/hope that if you knew you could live forever that you wouldn't spend all your life talking about living forever. Instead of addressing the curse of being born with LCDs on their forearms and trying to do the logical thing like preventing newborns from suffering the same fate—the typical but tried and true savior of humanity narrative—they run off and loot banks for more time. When characters care so little about the movie, I know I shouldn't.