Nice idea. Not great execution

Rating: 6/10 (17 August 2012)

In Time is actually a neat little idea for a movie. The idea that everyone on earth stops aging at the age of 25, and then from then on, money literally becomes the life force that keeps you going. You go to work to earn time. You pay your rent with time, you pay for coffee with time. People steal your time instead of your wallet. And yes, when your time runs out, then you die.
Will (Timberlake) is from the ghetto, where every day, he survives just enough to see the next one. However, one night, a stranger hands him over 100 years of time, enough to buy a nice car, move into the nice neighbourhood, and finally live like a free man. But, in a poorly explained intervention, the authorities don't like the poor getting time that easily, and Will soon is on the run with the daughter of a powerful banker, eager to make a change to this bleak world before his time runs out.
I have a problem watching these sort of movies, in that I could never envision a world where we would ever let ourselves come to this sort of situation. A bit like The Hunger Games, where I could never see us, as a civilisation, enjoying an event where teenagers kill each other. But that's one of the things with sci-fi. You need to accept what isn't currently possible. As Will kind of half-ass gets away with covering at the start, he can't explain why we got to this situation, but that's just the way it is.
The acting isn't great. Timberlake really is more suited to support roles. He was good in Alpha Dog, but clearly, leading roles maybe aren't his forte. It may not be entirely his fault, and his character is pretty-stock standard, but you can kind of tell he doesn't really have a great range of emotional acting to draw from. Amanda Seyfried, as Will's hostage-come-helper is equally flat. The usually excellent Cillian Murphy, as the dogged cop trying to track down the wrongly accused Will, is wasted in his 1-dimensional character. The script won't excite any scholars, and the action is decent but nothing special.
It's an OK movie. As I said, the idea is quite neat. But if this was going to be a great film, it needed something more, and better acting and a better script would've helped. The film is shot quite well, but it felt rushed, and that's probably why the characters seem weak and under- developed. Give it a go for the novelty of the idea, but don't expect too much.