Average at best...

Rating: 6/10 (25 January 2012)

The idea of a perfect socio-political society has been a driving theme in countless sci-fi movies, many of which take place in a futuristic utopia. While sci-fi classics like "Total Recall" and "Blade Runner" not only raised the bar for its time, these movies have also stood the test of time as benchmarks; even for this day and age. As such, there will always be movies that try to top the sci-fi genre by any means possible. "Gatacca" was one such film that looked at genetic discrimination and individuality, when comparing the weakness of humans with the strengths of clones. Writer-director Andrew Niccol had a lot of things going for him with the Academy Award nominated "Gatacca". This time around, Niccol returns as writer, director and producer, but fails on almost every aspect of this film.
It is the year 2161 and humans are genetically engineered to live up to the age of 25. As this is just the early part of the plot, it is safe to assume that this must be a drastic but necessary step to curb (the current) population crisis. To sit through the remaining part of the movie, you have to suspend reality and everything thing else you may know about what makes the world tick. Taking the age old idiom that 'time is money', time is literally currency in this movie. The more time a person has, in units of hours, years, or decades, entitles that person to live that much longer beyond the age of 25. Surprised? Wait, there's more. An implant on the hand of a person displays just how much time they have left and time can also be transferred from one person to another. Salaries or loans increase (extends) time, while purchases decrease time .When a person "times-out", that person dies instantly. With less than two hours remaining, Rachel Salas (Olivia Wilde) discovers to her horror, that she cannot board a bus home due to an unexpected price hike from one hour to two hours. Not finding his mother on the bus, Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) runs down the street to find her. She times-out just before falling into his arms. From here on, the plot goes from ridiculous to ludicrous. Will learns that time is imbalanced, where rich people live longer and poor people die every day (who would have guessed!). To avenge his mother's death, Will does the most sensible thing- he kidnaps the daughter of Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser) a wealthy banker, and demands a million years as ransom. As it turns out, Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried) is not too fond of her father either, and becomes Will's accomplice in a series of bank robberies aimed at distributing time to people in the ghettos. In hot pursuit are mobsters known as the 'Minutemen' and a police force run by the 'Timekeeper' (Cillian Murphy).
What I find unbelievable is the fact that Nicool also wrote the scripts for "The Truman Show" and "The Terminal", both critically acclaimed movies that placed lead characters in the middle of an identity crisis. Having said this, it is a big mystery as to what was going through Nicool's mind while scripting the screenplay here. I get real world comparisons that the rich will get richer as the poor get poorer, or that all the money in the world can't buy happiness or even save a loved one's life. What I don't get is how hard this movie tries to vindicate its inbuilt philosophy that only through the sacrifice of many, can a few claim the right to immorality. As that ideology is never really justified, that pillar of thought crumbles under its own weight. Then there are the plot holes. The most obvious is that if everyone is supposed to stop ageing at 25, why do most characters look well over 30? Plot holes and loose ends aside, this movie is also the mother of all clichés. Its bad enough that the very few scenes that are actually worth watching ends up as the most predictable moments in the film, corny dialogue, misplaced humor and a slight case of Robin Hood comes with it part and parcel as well. Moving on from bad to worse, Justin Timberlake is not the least bit convincing and Amanda Seyfried is eye candy as usual. Together, there is no chemistry between the two leads, so don't expect anything along the likes of Bonnie and Clyde. JT, stick to singing dude!