in time 2011 movie review

“Time is Money.” — Ben Franklin

Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seybried.

The premise is damnably intriguing. Written and directed by Andrew Niccol , maker of such original sci-fi movies as “ Gattaca ” (1997) and “S1mOne” (2002), it involves once again people whose lives depend on an overarching technology. In this case, they can buy, sell and gamble with the remaining years they have to live.

The market in time is everywhere. On this imaginary Earth, humans have a Day-Glo digital clock on their forearms, clicking off the years, months, days and hours. It’s like a population clock, except that it always grows smaller. By grasping hands and interfacing, I can upload and download time with you.

Justin Timberlake stars as Will Salas, a citizen of some unexplained future or parallel world (the settings and costumes are relatively contemporary), who finds himself on the run from the law. In this world, genetic engineering has been used to switch off everyone’s body clock at age 25. At that point, they have one more year to live, but can work or make deals for more — or commit crimes. The 25-year limit had the curious effect of making everyone more or less the same age, which explains the sexy Olivia Wilde as Will’s mother.

One day, Will has a conversation with a morose man named Henry Hamilton ( Matt Bomer ), who explains he is 100 years old and has another century in the bank. He’s tired of living. Their conversation drags on into philosophical depths, until both fall asleep. Will awakens with an extra century on his clock and looks out the window to see Henry preparing to jump from a bridge. He runs out to stop him, is too late and is caught by a security camera, making him a suspect in the man’s death.

The plot now interweaves Sylvia Weis ( Amanda Seyfried ), daughter of the richest man alive, Philippe Weis ( Vincent Kartheiser ), who has untold centuries on his clock and is essentially immortal. But enough about the plot.

The movie I suppose is an allegory in which time is money in a brutally direct way. For some of these people, time burns a hole in their pockets. For me, the most suspenseful scene involves a high-stakes poker game. Think about it. An opponent bets his whole pot: his life. Do you see him, or do you fold? If you lose, you’re not broke, you’re dead.

That said, a great deal of this film has been assembled from standard elements. Narrow your eyes to focus on them: Will Salas has the Identikit look of modern young action heroes: shaved head, facial stubble. For contrived reasons, he is paired with a beautiful young beauty and must drag her along with him as they’re pursued by gunfire. The rich man moves nobly through a setting of opulence. The villain ( Cillian Murphy ) is androgynous and elegant, mannered in his cruelty. There are chases and so on. The only original element is the idea of timekeeping as a framework for these off-the-shelf parts. The only character of personal interest is Henry Hamilton.

Unanswered questions abound. The cars look like customized luxury boats from the 1970s; there’s a Lincoln Continental with the slab sides but no nameplate. The time is said to be “the near future,” yet Henry has already lived a century. Don’t even think to ask about the mechanism of the timekeeping, or how human life is stored up in what look curiously like VHS cassette cases. And what of etiquette? Is allowing people to see your forearm as vulgar as flashing a big roll of cash?

Justin Timberlake continues to demonstrate that he is a real actor, with screen presence. But after the precise timing and intelligence he brought to “ The Social Network ,” it’s a little disappointing to find him in a role that requires less. He has a future in the movies.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Olivia Wilde as Rachel Salas
Matt Bomer as Henry Hamilton
Cillian Murphy as Leon
Amanda Seyfried as Sylvia Weis
Justin Timberlake as Will Salas
Alex Pettyfer as Fortis
Johnny Galecki as Borel
Vincent Kartheiser as Philippe Weis

Written and directed by

Andrew Niccol

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Movie Review | 'In Time'

Die Young, Stay Pretty, and Watch Your Clock

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By Manohla Dargis

Oct. 27, 2011

The tick tick tock of the mortal clock gives the science-fiction thriller “In Time” its slick, sweet premise. Set in a near or far future in a segregated city that resembles the separated, weirdly depopulated neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles (where it was shot), the movie imagines a world in which everyone stops aging at 25. (Just like in Hollywood!) On that birthday a glowing green digital clock on everyone’s left forearm starts running, giving them just 365 days to go and then 364, 363, 362. When the days run out, the clock stops for good.

In this futureworld in which time is literally money — everything, including food, shelter and wages, is valued in minutes, hours, years, decades — it’s possible to slow the escaping hourglass sand by buying more time, as the rich do. The poor, of course, are slaves to time: many die young and stay pretty, and are preyed on by time bandits called Minute Men, who clean clocks at gunpoint.

In the ghetto, an industrial-looking time zone called Dayton where Will (Justin Timberlake) lives, most people only scrape together a few extra hours. At 28, he has managed to put three additional years on his life, but the cost of breathing keeps going up. What set him back an hour yesterday may take two hours off his life tomorrow.

It’s a resonant, er, timely premise, something that Philip K. Dick might have typed up at the height of his frenzied paranoia. It’s also in keeping with the same themes about life and its simulations that have been grist for its writer and director, Andrew Niccol. In his 1997 film, “ Gattaca ,” biology is destiny to such a degree that any imperfection, no matter how slight, condemns the DNA-challenged to second-class status. (Its hero, played by Ethan Hawke, “passes” as perfect.) If “Gattaca” also worked as a metaphor for the movie industry, it’s because Mr. Niccol let his story serve his ideas; in “Simone,” though, a leaden, mirthless satire about a superstar who’s a software program, he wielded his ideas like a bludgeon, pounding them in until the film was dead on the screen.

“In Time” is closer to “Gattaca” and plays like something of a self-conscious, often clever amendment to that earlier film. In “Gattaca” the multiracial, multiethnic elect who have been genetically engineered to idealized type effectively function as a master race. “In Time” resurrects the master-slave dialectic and also invokes the Holocaust, specifically in the shots of the dead and poor who lie where they fall. For the most part, Mr. Niccol doesn’t continue down this perilous avenue, though like other filmmakers he can’t resist tricking out his resident storm troopers, a policelike unit known as the Timekeepers, in regulation black and shiny, shiny leather. Despite these nods at that old fascinating fascism, Mr. Niccol appears to be going for something a touch lighter.

The trouble is that romping and lightness don’t come naturally to him. The story opens with Will wishing his mother, Rachel (the young, dewy Olivia Wilde, in an amusing bit of casting), a happy 50th. The two live in an artfully dilapidated apartment with gated windows in Dayton, one of a number of different zones that constitute the new political and geographic order. Will has little sense of the world beyond the ghetto, though he has heard of an almost mythological zone named New Greenwich. He gets a chance to go over that rainbow when a stranger, Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer, from the cable show “White Collar”), transfers a century over to Will, a bequest that brings new life and some familiar genre danger.

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In Time Reviews

Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried lurch from car chases to shoot-outs, to a bloodless romantic interlude, while the script runs out of ideas around them, and eventually settles for a lazy Bonnie and Clyde-inspired final act.

Full Review | Oct 27, 2023

There is Hollywood-style action, entertainment, the beauty of Amanda Seyfried as the rebellious daughter of the millionaire villain... and the charisma of Justin Timberlake. Beyond that, not much more. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 26, 2023

The high concept science-fiction played out in "In Time" is as uniquely original, stylish, challenging, and enthralling as it is preposterous.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 4, 2023

After the novelty of the premise wears off, Niccol leaves his audience with a familiar scenario fueled by narrative clichés and pun-saturated dialogue.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 7, 2023

The acting is solid, if not spectacular... with a little more care and attention, In Time could have been one for the ages.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 7, 2021

To quote Cameron Crowe's depiction of Lester Bangs, In Time is a "think piece". It's just any thought process will be interrupted by some shoddy dialogue, appalling acting and muddling of tone.

Full Review | Apr 22, 2021

The suspenseful adventure that the film prioritizes offers solid entertainment and heightened immediacy.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Nov 30, 2020

There's nothing more precious than time. For that reason alone, I'll encourage you not to waste yours this weekend and avoid In Time.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.0/4.0 | Sep 12, 2020

Overall this film isn't heavy sci fi but it is a pretty fun ride and good sci fi film with some good use of themes and concepts that are resonating with current goings on in the world.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jan 11, 2020

All in all, In Time lacked time to get the key ingredients - as well as practically everything else that could have made it great.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 11, 2019

The film's central metaphor is so sublimely obvious it feels like it's been stolen from a forgotten Star Trek script.

Full Review | Aug 28, 2019

In Time is worth seeing and it is clearly made with passion, but it doesn't have the underlying vitality that makes the best science fiction immortal.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Feb 8, 2019

In Time is stylistically entertaining, but the story could have been a lot more developed.

Full Review | Jan 28, 2019

Slipping on an expensive suit, Timberlake's likeable lead fits in nicely. He has good chemistry with Seyfried's wide-eyed sidekick... The action is solid too, thanks to those constant deadlines.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 5, 2018

It's original, it's compelling, and it's completely mediocre.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Nov 10, 2018

Overall, [its] a solid, well-acted, well-conceived and well-staged science fiction film of the classic, quietly cerebral Outer Limits/Twilight Zone variety.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 4, 2018

If you're just after popcorn thrills, then In Time is not a complete waste of time, but future generations will not remember it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 24, 2018

Interesting as the film is as a science fiction concept and dull as it is as a political allegory, the Christian understands that there is a fundamental flaw in the story, namely that W.H. Auden was wrong.

Full Review | Jun 25, 2018

I enjoyed the film thoroughly, and realized afterward how well Niccol had drawn me into his imagined world. The first postscreening sight of a digital clock gave me the autonomic ghastlies.

Full Review | Jan 9, 2018

The final act kind of just falls apart and the big reveal about the time keeper's backstory fell flat.

Full Review | Oct 23, 2017

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A fascinating philosophical conceit delivered as a slick, hyper-stylized conspiracy yarn, juicy enough to deliver on both fronts, provided you don't ask too many questions.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

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A tightrope walk between inspired high-concept storytelling and near-agonizing obviousness, Andrew Niccol ‘s “ In Time ” takes place in a retro dimension where everyone is 25 ’til the day they die. Time is money as the rich measure their wealth in centuries while the poor scrape by for a few extra minutes, all painfully aware that life ends the second their accounts run empty. It’s a fascinating philosophical conceit delivered as a slick, hyper-stylized conspiracy yarn, juicy enough to deliver on both fronts, provided you don’t ask too many questions. Interest should sync with that of recent sci-fiers “The Adjustment Bureau” and “ Source Code .”

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In a return to the elegant, streamlined view of the future presented in “Gattaca” and “The Truman Show” — or perhaps some parallel universe, where the continents are shaped like ours and no matter where you go, everything looks like Los Angeles — writer-director Niccol turns back the clock a dozen years, effectively erasing the disappointment of his intervening efforts, “Simone” and “ Lord of War .”

Popular on Variety

The way it works, citizens are divided into time zones according to class. In the ghetto, guys like Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) live hour-to-hour, keeping a careful eye on the bright green life-expectancy timers embedded in their forearms. The most reliable way to buy themselves more time is to spend some it on the job, though renegades (such as Alex Pettyfer ‘s dandy-dressing, English-accented gangster) run around robbing people for a few hours.

Nobody walks in the ghetto; time is far too precious. In the more upscale time zones, however, it’s a different story: Leisure is a way of life, bought at the expense of the working poor — a lesson Will learns when a suicidal chap ( Matt Bomer ) with a century on his clock whispers a few big secrets before taking a tumble off the nearest bridge. In true Hitchcockian fashion, innocent Will has no way to explain how he acquired 100-plus years, a situation that puts him on the lam from a squad of officious time keepers led by Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy).

As science fiction goes, “In Time” is the type that alters a few intriguing variables while otherwise preserving enough of the real world to illuminate aspects of our current system we don’t normally consider. Niccol’s intriguing concept hinges on the ability to stop aging at the quarter-century mark and to sustain the body in mint condition as long as its owner can “afford” it.

But the idea of time as money has real currency at a moment when world events have shaken the foundations of a paper-based banking system, just as the film’s central inequity — which finds Philippe Weis (“Mad Men’s” boyishly smarmy Vincent Kartheiser) exploiting the poor to feed his own immortality — echoes the sentiments of the Occupy Wall Street crowd.

Thanks to a stellar below-the-line team that includes d.p. Roger Deakins, production designer Alex McDowell and costume designer Colleen Atwood , “In Time” looks like “Gattaca,” though the story is far more intricate and the action considerably more complex. With a major assist from second-unit action guru David M. Leitch, Niccol stages shootouts and chase scenes that take full advantage of Timberlake’s action-hero potential, pairing him with red-wigged Amanda Seyfried as Weis’ daughter, Sylvia, a hostage-turned-accomplice in Will’s efforts to upset the system.

But the helmer is too much in love with his own ideas, indulging every little play on words (Pettyfer: “I’d say your money or your life, but your money is your life”). He’s incredibly surface-oriented, which makes for meticulous compositions amid beautiful environments, but causes problems in casting, especially since Niccol doesn’t handle actors well, however perfect their cheekbones may be.

A rugged 30, Timberlake deepens his usually reedy voice, suggesting that time is harder on those in the working class. For the most part, side players fare less convincingly. Olivia Wilde is particularly ill-used, except to guarantee a laugh at the film’s opening line (“Hi, Mom”), while model-looking extras are left to flail awkwardly on the sidelines.

Still, the premise is rich enough to engage, making it easy to forgive Niccol’s indulgences. What other studio director would have the nerve to counter Ayn Rand on her own turf, packaging a sure-footed lefty parable as genre entertainment? Though not exactly a rallying cry for the cause, “In Time” serves as two hours well spent for those bullied by the system and looking to let off some steam.

Production: A 20th Century Fox release of a Regency Enterprises presentation of a New Regency/Strike Entertainment production. Produced by Andrew Niccol, Eric Newman, Marc Abraham. Executive producers, Arnon Milchan, Hutch Parker, Bob Harper, Andrew Z. Davis, Kristel Laiblin, Amy Israel. Co-producer, Debra James. Directed, written by Andrew Niccol.
Crew: Camera (widescreen, Deluxe color), Roger Deakins; editor, Zach Staenberg; music, Craig Armstrong; production designer, Alex McDowell; art directors, Priscilla Elliott, Todd Cherniawsky, Chris Farmer; set decorator, Karen O'Hara; costume designer, Colleen Atwood; sound (Dolby/Datasat), Ed Novick; supervising sound editors, Richard King, Michael Babcock; re-recording mixers, Paul Massey, David Giammarco; special effects supervisor, Matt Sweeney; visual effects supervisor, Ellen M. Somers; visual effects, Soho VFX, Luma Pictures; stunt coordinator, David M. Leitch; second unit director, Leitch; second unit camera, Paul Hughen; assistant director, Lars P. Winther; casting, Denise Chamian. Reviewed at Fox Studios, Los Angeles, Oct. 25, 2011. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 109 MIN. Secondary Cast: With: Matt Bomer, Johnny Galecki, Collins Pennie, Toby Hemingway, Brendan Miller, Yaya DaCosta, Alex Pettyfer.
With: Sylvia Weis - Amanda SeyfriedWill Salas - Justin Timberlake Raymond Leon - Cillian Murphy Philippe Weis - Vincent Kartheiser Rachel Salas - Olivia Wilde

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Review by Brian Eggert October 28, 2011

In his latest study into the encroachment of science on humanity, writer-director Andrew Niccol considers Benjamin Franklin’s axiom “time is money” to a literal degree. Much akin to his feature debut, 1997’s Gattaca —a film where the quality of your genetic code determined your status in the world—Niccol investigates another dystopia-disguised-as-utopia sci-fi premise with In Time . Guided by an intriguing premise, Niccol delivers a barefaced allegorical future world that may strike a considerable chord with Wall Street protesters and others deeply affected by the world’s economic crisis. However, after the novelty of the premise wears off, Niccol leaves his audience with a familiar scenario fueled by narrative clichés (chase scenes, bank heists, etc.) and pun-saturated dialogue, not to mention plot holes galore.

In the film, set presumably in the distant future (although the world doesn’t appear to have changed all that much, so perhaps “alternate future” is more accurate), people live to only 25 years of age, at which point their aging halts and their clock starts. Every person is genetically tied to a fluorescent green digital counter on their forearm, and at 25, everyone receives a year’s credit, used like money to purchase goods and services. A cup of coffee costs four minutes of your life, a bus ride is two hours, and so forth. Time can be traded and stolen by clasping your wrist to another’s. If you die, your counter goes out. If you have enough time, you could live forever. But in this world, the poor die young; their counters reach zero and they fall to their death, relieving the surplus population while the wealthy accumulate time and live as immortals (in a way, it recalls the world outlined in Daybreakers , with a master class sucking the life from the inferior underclass). And in this world, the separation of classes is great. You can see here the potential for an allegory of our capitalist society.

“Time zones” divide classes by massive walls, and the protagonist Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives in the ostensible ghetto zone. Everyone lives day-to-day in Will’s zone, struggling to make enough time to survive until tomorrow. They run from place to place, always in a rush, scraping for a minute here or there, and sometimes people run out of time and their bodies are left on the street. A gang of local nutjobs (led by Alex Pettyfer) isn’t above robbing strays of their time to survive. Will, 28, lives with his mother (Olivia Wilde), 50, although they look about the same age. One evening, Will meets a man who has 100 years on his clock, but he’s lived too long and wants to die, so the man transfers his time to Will and then commits suicide. Before Will can restore his mother’s time, it runs out. Alone and angry, Will announces his plan to make the rich pay for propelling this grossly unfair world. Elsewhere, Will’s sudden increase in time sparks an investigation by “Timekeeper” Leon (Cillian Murphy), this world’s answer for a grizzled detective.

Will travels to the “zone” of the upper classes and finds that it moves at a much slower pace, as people there have time to spare and embrace their title as idle rich. He makes his way into a casino where he plays poker opposite Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser), whose wealth is measured in eons, and spies Weis’ spoiled but rebellious daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried). Later, Leon confronts Will, who makes a run for it with Sylvia in tow. Both Will and Sylvia suddenly have limited time, so they’re almost attached by the wrist to survive by feeding each other minutes, not unlike the handcuff meet-cute from Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps. Before long, Will and Sylvia have run off on a Robin Hood-inspired quest to steal time from the rich and give it to the poor, robbing banks in a Bonnie and Clyde- style adventure.

Along the way, an unrelenting number of time puns wear on the viewer. “Your time is up,” one says to another before they die, and “I’m gonna clean your clock!” is another way of threatening to murder someone. Niccol misses no opportunity to inject corny puns, nor does he skip over his characters’ many exchanges of time. Twenty minutes of this film must be dedicated to characters clasping wrists and watching their counters increase or decrease. So much time is spent worrying about time, it’s any wonder “the system” (as it is called) was ever established. Who made the decision to apply this device to humanity? Why did society go along with it, given the apparent downfalls? Who’s in charge of this world, aside from the vaguely alluded-to voices of authority heard on Weis’ phone? Where are the other technological advances in this world? Why do the cars look like 1970s classics souped-up with futuristic lights? All of these questions are left unanswered, dismissed by an opening bit of narration by Will that says he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care about the whys and hows of his world—he just wants to live.

As the underdog hero, Timberlake is miscast. He headlines an attractive list of young actors, the best-looking of which compose the flourishing upper class. Casting a pop-culture icon as someone who defies elitists, however, seems like a joke on the audience. Timberlake never quite pulls off his rebellious act, nor does Seyfried make her bad girl routine believable. Shouldn’t Will Salas have been played by a more rugged individual who looks like he lives in the slums of the future? Even with buzzed hair and facial scars, Timberlake still looks like a pop star. It doesn’t help that he and Seyfried are given little more to do than run, kiss, shoot guns, and make time-related puns. Meanwhile, Mad Men ’s Kartheiser plays a Trumpian villain like he’s auditioning for the next Bond movie. Only the Timekeeper role is filled with fitting composure, a characteristic expected and always delivered by Murphy, even if the character’s motivations for betraying his once-ghetto stomping grounds go unexplained.

Niccol’s film is modestly stylish in a low-tech way, with no fancy CGI backdrops or elaborate visuals to speak of. Cinematographer Roger Deakins shoots empty Los Angeles locales (from the concrete river to Century City) to look like abandoned scenery where the film’s obvious metaphors can unfold. And while Niccol’s message—all but shouted into our ears with a bullhorn—may be an admirable and relative one for contemporary audiences, the storytelling devolves into a lazy, actionized second-half reminiscent of a dozen other sci-fi yarns you’ve probably seen and since forgotten. Despite the premise’s brimming potential and the prospect of something different and initially fascinating, Niccol wastes his time on formulaic story mechanisms that soften what could have been a considerable blow to his target.

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Movie Review: In Time (2011)

Aaron Leggo
Movie Reviews
7 responses
--> November 15, 2011

I often feel like I don’t have enough time in the day to get everything done (I could always use a few more hours for movie watching!), but such complaining pales in comparison to the plight of the citizens of Andrew Niccol’s sci-fi parable In Time . For them, time is their lifeblood and not having enough hours in the day to do fun stuff is a simple irritant rendered pointless by the fact that they generally have barely enough time to live. Set in a sort of alternate reality (or retro-ized future) where time is the new currency, In Time imaginatively and impressively explores the conflict between the time-rich and the time-poor.

Everyone walks around with a glowing green set of numbers that burn bright just beneath the skin of their forearms. The numbers break down how much time each individual has, ranging from a few minutes to the ridiculously near-immortal period of several thousand years. For those living in the ghetto, like protagonist Will (Justin Timberlake, actually wearing the charismatic role relatively convincingly), life is a constant struggle to maintain digits on their internal clock. Will works a dull job in some sort of dull factory and the time he logs is paid out in time that he then has to use to keep the bills at bay. It’s a tough life where the only end in sight is his time completely running out.

Niccol grabs us from the beginning with his virulent display of concept exploration. He instantly sets up the premise and then begins to really hammer home the strange, startling specifics of the situation. Want a cup of coffee? That’ll be four minutes! It may not sound like much at first, but considering that most ghetto denizens are walking around with just a few hours on their arms puts the cost of such common pleasures in perspective. Costs keep rising, too, while stagnant wages squash any hope of getting ahead. Living paycheck-to-paycheck has been replaced by quite literally living day-to-day and the expired bodies that keep ending up on the ghetto streets are a strong sign that things are only getting worse.

The metaphor for economic imbalance is blatantly obvious and Niccol boils it down even further by focusing entirely on one ghetto and one big, luxurious city. Maps on walls tell us that the entire U.S. is divided into “time zones” and it’s safe to assume that the rest of the world is in a similar situation, but Niccol isn’t interested in taking a globalized approach to the fascinating concept. He wants to provide a more focused microcosm of this new type of society. By reducing the narrative to one good, though poor zone, and one bad, though rich zone, he is able to tighten his view and provide a more character-centric adventure. The claustrophobic setting doesn’t leave much room for any gray area (people are either really good or really bad), but at least Niccol applies the duotone approach to all aspects of the movie. He’s certainly consistent.

Nobody is ever straddling the middle road here, so when the inciting incident shows up, it’s sure to skip the space between time-poor and time-rich. In this world, no such space exists, so Will has the incredible fortune of being rewarded for a combination of good Samaritan work and great timing (oh the irony!) by gaining over a century of life. Suddenly, he’s gone from pitifully poor to wantonly wealthy. With this new lease on life, he’s finally able to escape the ghetto (it requires a ton of time to cross into another “time zone”) and check out the big, fancy city. Of course, Will isn’t about to be corrupted by riches, since all he wants is to break down the barriers between rich and poor and add some balance to this mess.

Will’s journey allows the movie to transform into a slightly clunky action vehicle during which he kidnaps the feisty daughter (Amanda Seyfried) of a calm, collected dude (Vincent Kartheiser) who might just be the closest thing to an immortal on the planet and is then hunted by a group of time-cops led by a scowling Cillian Murphy. Niccol’s handling of the action sequences is nowhere near as interesting as his handling of the day-to-day conflict enacted by the concept, but he does approach the chase sequences with enough zeal in order to prevent the adoption of an action flick template from feeling too arbitrary.

None of the performances in the movie are particularly outstanding, but they’re all pretty good at the same time and Timberlake is fun to watch in the embattled hero role. Seyfried is a bit one-note, but at least her character isn’t a complete damsel in distress and she makes her heroic moments look good. A romantic edge soon emerges and they prove to have enough chemistry to make it all plausible. Murphy and Kartheiser are playing two rotten bad guys with pretty flat arcs, but they’re still intimidating enough to take seriously. Even Alex Pettyfer offers a decent turn as a time-stealing gangster, certainly a step in the right direction after embarrassing himself earlier this year in the horrid “ I Am Number Four ” and laughable “Beastly.”

Adding extra flavor in key areas, Niccol warps the design of the movie by employing a retro chic that is offset by the stunningly futuristic time pieces embedded under everyone’s skin. All of the cars have classic designs, but appear to run on electricity (the idea of surviving one economic hardship with the abandonment of gas-powered engines, only to face a far more difficult one is an unspoken commentary). And then there’s the curious absence of cell phones, so often a staple of future world redesigns. At one point, Will decides to make a call and he rounds a corner only to find . . . a series of payphones?! As if the lives of ghettoized individuals living hour-by-hour need to be any more inconvenienced.

With his trademark use of sickly yellows and pretty blues, Niccol paints an intriguing portrait of extreme class struggles gone uniquely and chronologically awry. In Time puts Niccol back in juicy science fiction territory, from where he launched his brilliant 1997 directorial debut “Gattaca.” The thought-provoking sci-fi narrative with a human twist is clearly a passion of Niccol’s and this represents a more satisfying return to the genre than his clumsy 2002 picture “S1m0ne.” This film is still nowhere near the magic of his first movie which remains proof of Niccol’s ability to craft a profoundly emotional experience. But despite what In Time is not, it remains a creatively clever concept picture with a really sharp imagination. It tickles the mind and acts as a strong, inventive reminder that while a fancy cup of coffee may be expensive in our world, at least it doesn’t cost us our lives.

Tagged: future , love , police , wealth

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'Movie Review: In Time (2011)' have 7 comments

November 15, 2011 @ 12:25 pm Cheryl

New faces, original story — I quite liked In Time.

November 15, 2011 @ 12:59 pm Ed

If nothing else, it was an interesting way to depict the divide between the haves and have nots.

November 15, 2011 @ 2:16 pm Wringer

Justin Timberlake isn’t the action hero type so I felt he was miscast. Can’t go wrong with having Olivia Wilde and Amanda Seyfried around to steam the screen up though.

November 15, 2011 @ 5:25 pm Cooter

Can someone explain to me how or why Amanda Seyfried runs in those god-forsaken shoes the entire time?

November 16, 2011 @ 6:24 am Kwail

I saw it more as a failed attempt at a Gattaca-Logan’s Run fusion.

November 17, 2011 @ 11:07 pm Mark Zhuravsky

Excellent review, I was sorely disappointed by the film but reading your critique, I was reminded of the few aspects of it I enjoyed. I have to disagree about Murphy’s character, I feel like he’s gifted with some shades of grey and a moral compass that Kartheiser’s Philippe Weis lacks.

November 17, 2011 @ 11:44 pm Lisa Anne

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

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[Disclaimer: When I use the word "time" (or any variation thereof) figuratively, I'm not trying to make a pun. It's just a common and useful word for our vernacular.]

Andrew Niccol 's In Time has the opportunity to take its solid sci-fi concept and thoughtfully explore social and existential issues. Unfortunately, the movie skips along the surface, making its obvious points repeatedly and with decreasing clarity. While the need to make a smart sci-fi concept palatable to the masses is understandable, Niccol takes his appropriate action coating and runs it into the ground. In Time has so many things it wants to be and to say, but it ends up tripping over the words after the first few sentences.

In Time takes the saying "Time is money," and runs with it. In the future, humans have been genetically engineered to never age beyond 25, but the catch is that beyond 25 they need to acquire more time to stay alive. However, they need to keep acquiring more time in order to live. This scarcity has made time the currency and it can be added or deducted for goods and services. Like almost all economic systems, the wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of a few, and the poor like Will Solas ( Justin Timberlake ) live minute-to-minute.

One night, Will saves a rich man Henry Hamilton ( Matthew Bomer ) from some time bandits (not the cool kind; the kind led by Alex Pettyfer ) and they hole up in a warehouse. When Will wakes up, he sees that Hamilton transferred all his time to Will and before he can give it back, Hamilton willingly clocks out. Will's mother dies before he can share the wealth and he angrily makes his way to New Greenwich, home of the wealthy, to "make them pay." It's never clear how Will intended to do that, but he's hunted down by the Timekeepers, a fine-dressed police force tasked with keeping the status quo, under suspicion that he killed the rich guy. The Timekeepers, led by tired veteran Raymond Leon ( Cillian Murphy ), take all but two hours of his time, and Will retaliates by kidnapping Sylvia ( Amanda Seyfried ), the wealthy daughter of heartless corporate titan Philippe Weis ( Vincent Kartheiser ). The two go on the run and Niccol's thoughtful sci-fi fizzles out as characters betray their motivations and stumble around plot points.

In terms of current events, In Time could not have come at a better time. It speaks directly to the income disparity that has brought about the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the subtext is so glaringly obvious that anyone would be able to pick it up. That's fine for satire, but Niccol wants to build an action movie around a strong sci-fi core and good sci-fi doesn't offer a single, simple message. There's never anything more thoughtful or less obvious than "Rich get richer, poor get poorer." We all know that the rich profit off the labor and strife of the less fortunate and that the lower class rarely gets their fare share of the wealth. Some will cry that the film is socialist and they would be right. I personally don't think that's a bad thing, but as a film critic, I think the movie should be more than just a blatant political statement.

In Time also wants to explore the complexities of mortality, but again Niccol comes to a facile conclusion: "Live like there's no tomorrow." That's a fine maxim for the world he's created for the movie, but in real life, we can't live life to the fullest every day because unlike the characters, we don't know when we're going to die because we weren't born with digital clocks embedded in our forearms. Furthermore, we're not in a race for survival. Survival drives most of the characters and the commentary that "money is life", is an insight worthy of only a pompous college student.

These problems could have been solved if Niccol had mastered the details of his world and the characters that inhabit it. His smart concept raises too many questions that Niccol can't or won't answer. "Everyone gets a year after they turn 25, but how do some people hit 25 and have more than that?" "Does exercise make people live longer? If not, wouldn't people just eat junk food?" "Are there any illnesses and does that decrease the clock?" "Can people only fight each other for time through arm wrestling?" But more depressing is how Niccol takes such a rich premise and then tries to build a derivative movie around it. Building a chase-movie around the sci-fi is appropriate because a chase easily fits into a race against time. However, Niccol's original idea is consumed by feeding it to other movies. It's Bonnie & Clyde without the danger, Never Let Me Go without the pathos, and Over the Top without the backwards trucker hat.

The only element of In Time that really works is the leads, but only when Niccol doesn't betray the characters. Timberlake proves he's a worthy action star, and he has wonderful chemistry with the enchanting Seyfried. The two know how to play off each other, have plenty of cute moments, and they bring life to their simplistic and predictable relationship arc. As the story progresses, Will and Sylvia decide that it's time to bring time to the masses, and robbing time banks seems like a reasonable way to do so. But at one point, Will and Sylvia are almost out of time and Will robs a wealthy woman of almost all her time, effectively killing her. We can no longer side with Will because his actions have gone from noble to petty. The movie doesn't even bother adding depth to Leon (which may be why Murphy gives such an apathetic performance) or Philippe (Kartheiser is asked to provide his patented "I'm disgusted with you"-face and nothing more).

I stuck with In Time to the end because I wanted it to work so badly. Small, intimate sci-fi like Moon and Primer are fantastic, but some ideas need a larger canvas. Duncan Jones did a fine job earlier this year with Source Code , but that was built around a scenario and Niccol wanted to build an entire world. In Time never left me with anything deeper than its shallow commentary and ill-defined world, and eventually all I could think about was this scene from South Park :

Entertainment

In Time (2011)

In Time is the latest offering from writer-director Andrew Niccol, whose previous films include Gattaca , a sci-fi tale about genetic haves and have-nots, as well as S1m0ne , a Hollywood satire that represented in its own way a pursuit of an ideal of perfection by technological means.

Like those films, In Time is a provocative, thoughtful but somehow not entirely satisfying sci-fi parable with a striking premise.

Artistic/Entertainment Value

Moral/spiritual value, age appropriateness, mpaa rating, caveat spectator.

Niccol imagines a dystopian near future in which Benjamin Franklin’s adage that “Time is money” is taken to a literal extreme. Human beings are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, but they also come equipped with a literal biological clock, complete with digital readout on their forearms, that activates at 25 and begins counting down to zero.

Everyone starts with one year, but it’s like a checking account: Employees are paid in hours and days instead of in cash, and anything you want to buy costs you time. (A cup of coffee might set you back three or four minutes; a room in a swanky hotel could start at two months.) In this world, many people live literally day to day, while the privileged wealthy may be sitting on centuries, millennia or even more.

There are gaping holes in this setup, from the absence of even a gesture in the direction of an explanation for the origins of this state of affairs to the unworkably insecure technology itself: Everyone walks around with their current time balance showing all the time, and while time can be voluntarily transferred between people, it can also be taken by force, or even simply stolen while you sleep. No society could function like this. People need to be able to lock and unlock their time balances, and turn their readouts on and off.

On the other hand, accept the premise for what it is, and In Time offers intriguing fodder for thought on a number of themes: Besides the have/have-not divide and unjust systems that aggravate inequalities, Niccol contemplates our society’s glorification of youth and beauty, fear of death and fascination with immortality, and fear of ennui and the longing for death. Simplistic attempts at bettering the conditions of the poor may backfire, and the movie contemplates whether a sufficiently unjust system may call for direct action against the system itself.

In Time starts promisingly, with a strong first act that could stand along as an intriguing short film. Will Salas (Justin Timberlake), a boy from the hood, lives with Olivia Wilde, his 50-year-old mother. ( Zing. Once again, as in Tron: Legacy and Cowboys & Aliens , Wilde is cast is a sci-fi role as a sexy character who isn’t quite what she seems.) Will meets a man who changes his life forever, then suffers a blow that sends him on a collision course with the power brokers of his world.

From the ghetto Will travels to the bastions of wealth and power, where he catches the eye of the super-rich, super-bored Sylvia (Seyfried), and matches wits with her father, time tycoon Phillipe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser). Then the movie gets bogged down in role action-movie clichés, and loses its way for a time. For every smart twist, there’s an unconvincing one. The Weises live on the Connecticut coast, and when Will, who has never seen the ocean, wants to go in, Sylvia looks scandalized: “We never go in.” Will is incredulous, with good reason. Genetically engineered perpetual 25-year-olds I can accept, but superrich people living on the beach who just don’t go in the ocean? Really?

Eventually, the movie builds to a Bonnie-and-Clyde crime spree aimed at redistributing time wealth to those who need it most. “Is it stealing if it’s already stolen?” is a question that’s raised more than once. Unlike Tower Heist , though, things here aren’t necessarily so straightforward. Although the massively unequal outcomes in In Time are obvious, the mechanisms producing those inqualities are hazier. It’s got something to do with price fixing and population control, but it’s not like the superrich are literally sucking their wealth out of the poor.

The most obvious way in which the system is immoral is that it exists at all. To charge people literal time off their lives for goods and services, particularly people living on hours, is a much graver thing than charging money from even the most destitute. Running out of money is not the same as dying. It’s one thing if you have to walk home because the bus fare has just gone up to $2 and you only have $1.50. It’s another thing if the fare has just gone up to two hours and you only have 90 minutes. If it’s more than a 90 minute walk, you’re dead. (Interestingly, we repeatedly see an urban mission where a dedicated cleric distributes life-giving minutes to the poor. It’s the only religious element in the film.)

Given a system so immoral, would it be morally legitimate to break the law, or even attempt to crash the system? A case could certainly be made. Viewed as a parable, what does In Time have to say about the inequalities and injustices of our system? Is In Time basically socialist propaganda?

I wouldn’t call it propaganda, although it certainly romanticizes the protagonists’ exploits. I prefer to see it as a challenge to think about the issues rather than an endorsement of a particular answer. I said the same thing earlier this year about The Adjustment Bureau , another sci-fi parable about a guy towing a girl in a party dress around evading authorities. (The posters for the two films look strikingly similar.)

In Time is a messier, more problematic film than The Adjustment Bureau , but I think I found it more interesting. It’s probably firing on about half the cylinders it should be, about par for Niccol. Still, I appreciate its ambition and ideas—qualities sadly rare in popcorn entertainment these days.

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In time: film review.

Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried star in Andrew Niccol's dystopian film, giving new currency to Benjamin Franklin's infamous quote, "Time is Money."

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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It’s refreshing to see a low-tech major studio science fiction film in this day and age, one in which the only physical manifestation of its futuristic setting is a glowing digital clock emblazened on everyone’s lower arm that offers a running tally on how much time they’ve got to live. As novel and absorbing as In Time is in several respects, however, Andrew Niccol ‘s latest conception of an altered but still recognizable future feels undernourished in other ways that are not as salutary, preventing the film from fulfilling its strong inherent promise. The imperiled-lovers-on-the-run action format with Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried heading an insanely attractive cast should produce decent mid-range box office totals.

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90 Movieline Stephanie Zacharek Movieline Stephanie Zacharek In Time has so much style and energy that it comes across as an act of boldness rather than just a liberal-minded tract, though of course, it's that too. If there were ever a movie made for the 99 percent, this is it.
75 Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert Justin Timberlake continues to demonstrate that he is a real actor, with screen presence. But after the precise timing and intelligence he brought to "The Social Network," it's a little disappointing to find him in a role that requires less. He has a future in the movies.
70 Salon Andrew O'Hehir Salon Andrew O'Hehir So, yeah - even if In Time descends from its gripping and thought-provoking premise into a mediocre chase thriller before it's over, it's still pretty damn satisfying to watch in the current climate.
70 Variety Variety It's a fascinating philosophical conceit delivered as a slick, hyper-stylized conspiracy yarn, juicy enough to deliver on both fronts, provided you don't ask too many questions.
63 Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez If you can overlook the lack of logic inherent in its central conceit, In Time makes for a fun, stylish piece of speculative sci-fi.
63 Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore "Gattaca" director Andrew Niccol's sense of the zeitgeist is as on the money as ever with In Time, a sci-fi parable that plays like "Occupy Wall Street: The Movie."
50 Slant Magazine Nick Schager Slant Magazine Nick Schager Justin Timberlake can't elevate what amounts to relatively simplistic, formulaic material, but his headlining turn exhibits sufficient charisma and wit to make In Time a passably diverting action-packed waste of time.
50 The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy As novel and absorbing as In Time is in several respects, however, Andrew Niccol's latest conception of an altered but still recognizable future feels undernourished in other ways that are not as salutary, preventing the film from fulfilling its strong inherent promise.
50 The A.V. Club Tasha Robinson The A.V. Club Tasha Robinson Much like Niccol's "Gattaca," in which genetic perfection rather than time was the weapon a small group of snobby, unworthy elites used to hold down the meek masses, In Time is a chilly, stiff movie where clever ideas are delivered as self-righteous sermons.
16 Tampa Bay Times Steve Persall Tampa Bay Times Steve Persall Niccol fashioned an uninspired and downright dull sci-fi gimmick and doesn't even explain how it happened.
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DVD & Streaming
Action/Adventure , Drama , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

October 28, 2011
Justin Timberlake as Will Salas; Amanda Seyfried as Sylvia Weis; Cillian Murphy as Raymond Leon; Vincent Kartheiser as Philippe Weis; Olivia Wilde as Rachel Salas

Home Release Date

January 31, 2012
Andrew Niccol

Distributor

20th Century Fox

Movie Review

We sometimes talk about living on borrowed time. But no one takes the phrase quite so literally as those who live in the rundown Dayton district.

Here, in a world where time really is money—where people stop aging at 25 but start dying then, too, where folks spend minutes for coffee and weeks for a hotel room—the residents of Dayton literally live day to day. Will Salas, ever since his clock started ticking, has never gone a day with more than a day to live: He’s survived the last three years through guile and hard work—pulling extra shifts at the factory and then running home to share his precious minutes with his mother.

But there’s never enough time to do what you want to do, and Will knows that he can’t stay 25 forever. Prices keep rising. His wages keep falling. His time is running out.

Then one night he sees a guy at a bar spending decades like Monopoly minutes. He’s carrying more than a century with him—and carting around that much time in Dayton is like signing your own death warrant. Will rescues the dude from a tough scrape and spirits him away to safety. And while the guy appreciates the gesture, he tells Will that, at the eternally youthful age of 105, he’s ready to pull out the batteries.

“The day comes when you’ve had enough,” he says. “We want to die. We need to.”

Yeah, sure , thinks time-deprived Will, and he drifts off to sleep. But when he wakes, he discovers two curious things: One, his own internal clock has been reset with another 116 years. Two, his new friend is lying dead outside.

So Will’s been given the precious gift of time. Lots of it. But in this crazy, clock-obsessed world, folks like Will aren’t supposed to have extra time on their hands. They’re supposed to live and die like good citizens, so a few rich and powerful people can live for as long as they want. Will’s new cache of time violates the scheme of things—a delicate economic system that’s worked so nicely for … well, quite some time. And it’s not long before time-coveting crooks and time-keeping cops decide to clean Will’s clock, whispering to themselves, We want what’s … hours .

Positive Elements

Maybe we could all use a green, glowing countdown clock on our forearms—something that would tell us how much time we really had. Perhaps if we did, we wouldn’t waste our time like we sometimes do. Will, in some ways, sets a good example for us: He certainly makes the most of the time he’s been given—using every hour, minute and second to its full potential.

And that ethic hasn’t made him stingy, either. He’s generous with his time. We see him give a decade to a friend and an unspecified amount to a little homeless girl. He even gives a couple of hours to a timekeeper who’s pursuing him—allowing the cop to get back to base before he expires. Why? Because Will doesn’t think time should be rationed, that the poor should have days and the rich eons. He believes there’s time enough for all—and he pushes the powers that be to become fairer and more equitable.

(Now in so doing, Will becomes something of a chronological Robin Hood, and naturally that comes with its own set of problems. But while we may take issue with his methods, we can’t fault Will’s heart here.)

Spiritual Elements

For a world so obsessed with time, there’s very little mind paid to the subject of eternity. There’s a sense here that when your clock stops ticking, that’s it: You’ve just stopped ticking. There’s no discussion of an afterlife, no ruminations on God and whether He would’ve approved of time being used and abused in this way.

And yet faith is not entirely absent. There’s a mission house in Dayton that doles out time instead of food. The place is headed by an apparent priest (in the credits he’s called Levi) who bears a religious symbol that ever so slightly resembles a Christian cross. Will sneaks up on Levi at one juncture with a mask on, and Levi assumes that he’s being robbed:

“I don’t have much,” Levi says. “Everything I have I give away.”

“I know,” Will says, and loads up Levi’s counter with his own minutes.

One more spiritually themed note: The world’s time-based economic system is often characterized as fair, in a strictly survival-of-the-fittest sort of way. And the code needed to access a safe holding lots and lots of time is, unsurprisingly, Charles Darwin’s birth date.

Sexual & romantic Content

Will hooks up with a girl named Sylvia, daughter of a fabulously wealthy time magnate. The two skinny-dip in the ocean (we see a glimpse of Sylvia’s backside) and later play strip poker in a hotel room (Sylvia, dressed in only her underwear, is clearly losing when they pause to make out on the bed). The pair also smooches passionately a few times.

Women wear formfitting, cleavage-revealing clothing. A prostitute propositions a timekeeper, offering him 10 minutes of her time if he gives her an hour. Will makes a crude sexual allusion to a waitress.

Violent Content

In Time gives us a world in which people die when their countdown clocks hit 0. These genetically predetermined deaths aren’t particularly lingering: Victims look as if they were stricken by a sudden heart attack—a gasp, a grimace and they’re gone. We see a handful of folks go this way—one after his time’s been forcibly taken from him, another after losing a “fight” in which the contestants vie for each other’s allotments. A man gives away all of his time, killing himself.

The deceased get little notice, interestingly. And their bodies are sometimes left out in the open like old candy wrappers.

There are other ways to die of course. Several folks carry and use guns. One man is shot in the back of the head. Three others are gunned down in rapid succession and then laid out on a sidewalk like logs. Another takes a bullet to the arm and survives. People get punched, kicked and slammed into bathroom stall doors. Will and Sylvia get into a serious (though seriously fake-looking) car accident.

Crude or Profane Language

One f-word, three s-words and a smattering of other profanities, most prominently “d‑‑n” and “h‑‑‑.” God’s name is misused a half-dozen times (once with “d‑‑n”), and Jesus’ name is abused once.

Drug and Alcohol Content

We’ve always heard that drinking heavily can take years off your life, and in this movie that’s very, very true. Will, when he comes into some unexpected time, gives his best friend a decade. But his friend—who seems to spend a great deal of his spare (and not-so-spare) time at the local watering hole—wastes it all on booze and literally drinks himself to death, leaving behind a wife and baby.

Others drink wine and champagne. Will’s rich friend shares a flask of something with him.

Other noteworthy Elements

[ Spoiler Warning ] When Will has his gift of time—the time given to him by his suicidal friend—taken away from him by the timekeepers, he turns to a life of crime. He kidnaps Sylvia, though it’s not long before the two become the time-bandit version of Bonnie and Clyde. They begin robbing time banks, giving the poor most of what they take … a crime spree that eventually culminates in them stealing a great many years from Sylvia’s father and turning it over to the destitute.

“Is it stealing if it’s already stolen?” Sylvia asks. It seems like a fair question, but the answer still has to be yes. Because the counter-question is, If the stuff you’re stealing was really stolen from someone else, is it OK to spend it on yourself?

Will and Sylvia refuse to grapple with that second question, using their ill-gotten time to pamper themselves. Will and others engage in high-stakes gambling.

Someone throws up in a toilet.

It’s appropriate that In Time is so focused on the clock, because the film itself is a little two-faced. On the hour hand, we have this intriguing premise—the distribution of time. One of the world’s great levelers has always been time: No matter how rich or poor we are, we all get the same 24 hours in a day, and (quality healthcare aside) we can’t ever really buy more of it. In Time flips that long-standing reality on its head, transferring our days and weeks and years into the hands of a very few, very wealthy people.

But if you look at the minute hand, you can see that the film manages to transform this compelling theme into a silly, almost campy crime caper pandering to the Occupy Wall Street crowd. Certainly those who question the merits of capitalism and favor redistribution of wealth—however wealth is defined—will find much to like here.

And even then, In Time isn’t wholly consistent. It’s easy to latch onto the idea that hoarding time would be a crime. That the economic system in play here is inherently unpleasant. But the fact that Will and Sylvia spend so freely of other people’s time when they “steal it back” doesn’t bode well for an unswerving narrative. Shouldn’t they be giving that time back to its rightful owners? It feels sort of like a rapper railing against poverty on one song, then trumpeting his latest Maybach on the next. There’s just something unseemly about it.

The film tells us that time is a precious commodity. Agreed. It’s all the more reason to think long and hard before spending it on this movie.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Common Sense Says
Parents Say 12 Reviews
Kids Say 44 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Sci-fi thriller has violence, sexuality, language.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 14+?

Occasional use of words like "s--t," "ass," "damn,&quot

Will and Sylvia hook up pretty quickly; they flirt and go skinny dipping (her nu

Plenty of shootings (some at close range, though there's little blood); one

Adults drink wine, champagne, and hard liquor at social events, a bar, and in pr

Any Positive Content?

At times, Will is a good role model: He's a loving son, a generous man, and

The idea that time is precious is a good message for all, as is the notion that

Occasional use of words like "s--t," "ass," "damn," and "hell," as well as one memorable "f--k" (said as "un-f--king-believable." "God" and "Jesus"-based exclamations are said several times as well.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Will and Sylvia hook up pretty quickly; they flirt and go skinny dipping (her nude bottom is shown under the water) before they even have their first kiss. Later, after their first passionate kiss, they end up staying together and making out. They play strip poker on a bed, and Sylvia is obviously losing -- she's down to her lace bra and panties. There's no actual love scene, though, since the couple is interrupted before they can go all the way (although it's clear they've done so off camera). In other scenes, a prostitute propositions a cop and rich women wear tight, revealing outfits.

Violence & Scariness

Plenty of shootings (some at close range, though there's little blood); one suicide. Most people die when their countdown clock hits zero, and this can happen to anyone -- particularly the poor -- at any time if they can't find someone to give or lend them some extra time until their next time-paying job. The dead are shown peppered throughout the streets; in one heartbreaking scene, two characters miss being reunited by a second, and it's just long enough for one to die in the other's arms. Those who do have more than enough time can still die if someone steals their time or if they're injured beyond repair in an accident, by a gun shot, etc. Most of the characters who die in the movie have their "clocks cleared," although a few are shot.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adults drink wine, champagne, and hard liquor at social events, a bar, and in private. Will's best friend (literally) drinks himself to death by using all of his bonus "time" on alcohol.

Positive Role Models

At times, Will is a good role model: He's a loving son, a generous man, and a good friend. His mother is also a sweet and kind woman who gives her son time she can't really spare. The manager of the local mission gives most of his time away to the needier, and even Sylvia grows to understand the plight of the timeless.

Positive Messages

The idea that time is precious is a good message for all, as is the notion that no one should ever die so that someone else can become richer. But the movie's moral is muddied by the main characters' inconsistent behavior. How can they judge who merits the time and who doesn't? Still, despite their dire situation, Will and his mother love each other unconditionally and are always willing to spare some time for each other and those who are even less fortunate.

Parents need to know that this sci-fi adventure features a fair bit of violence, twentysomething sexuality, and heavy themes about social equality and injustice that may not be appropriate for tweens interested in seeing a Justin Timberlake movie. Language includes one "f--k," as well as "s--t," "damn," "ass"; violent scenes feature close-range shootings (mostly bloodless), people dropping dead when their clocks reach zero, and one suicide. Sex is implied rather than shown, but there's a skinny-dipping scene with a glimpse of a nude bottom, as well as strip poker and some skimpy lingerie. There's a Robin Hood-esque theme to the second half of the movie, but it's wrapped around a shallower Bonnie-and-Clyde vibe of "let's have fun robbing from the rich." Despite the movie's mixed messages, one lesson is loud and clear: Don't waste your time. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (12)
Kids say (44)

Based on 12 parent reviews

It was good

What's the story.

Will Salas ( Justin Timberlake ) lives in a futuristic world in which everyone ages until 25 -- and then, the instant they hit that milestone, their internal clock is turned on like a glowing counter on their forearms, and they must work to earn each additional minute, hour, and year of their lives. Will and his mother, Rachel ( Olivia Wilde ), live in Dayton, the "poor" time zone in which everyone lives minute to minute; one night, after Will helps a wealthy man flee the zone's biggest time thief, the mysterious rich fellow explains how the rich are immortal, while the poor die in the streets. He then gives Will 116 years before committing suicide. Left with more time than anyone in his zone, Will flees to the far posher zone of New Greenwich, where businessmen like Philippe Weis ( Vincent Kartheiser ) are so time-rich that their wives wear gloves so as not to flaunt their millennia. Wanted by the head Timekeeper ( Cillian Murphy ), Will narrowly escapes the zone with Philippe's daughter, Sylvia ( Amanda Seyfried ), as his hostage. The two embark on a mission to redistribute time and expose the system's injustice.

Is It Any Good?

The first half of IN TIME is stylish and original and offers just enough action and punny time jokes to be genuinely entertaining without being over the top. Parading an all-star cast of talented actors, led by the always charismatic Timberlake, the movie is by turns a thriller, a treatise on the unfair distribution of wealth, and a Bonnie and Clyd e-meets- Robin Hood caper. Parts are particularly poignant, like a gut-wrenching sequence in which Rachel is running as fast as she can to meet Will before she times out, or when Will sweetly gives his best friend ( Johnny Galecki ) a decade in tribute to their 10 years of friendship.

But once Will and Sylvia hook up to free the time, the movie's many flaws emerge to bog the action down in unanswered questions. Will's dead father's name is brought up several times, but it's never exactly clear why he was such a revolutionary hero. It's also uncertain when or how the time system started -- if it's a genetic alteration introduced in a dystopian future or something created to keep the masses in slave-like conditions. Some of the relationships, especially Sylvia's with her parents, are especially one-dimensional (it's ludicrous that one of the richest men in the world wouldn't give away time for his one and only daughter). Director Andrew Niccol gets points for the movie's fascinating premise and the exciting cast, but he should have done a better job of sustaining the cool concept and tightening up loose ends. This is one of those entertaining-enough sci-fi movies that it's best not to overthink, or else your time will feel wasted.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the movie's sci-fi themes. Why are futuristic storylines so compelling to audiences? Is this vision of the future a positive one or a cautionary tale? Can you think of other movies with futures that seem better to live in than this time-obsessed one?

How do the filmmakers cleverly use "time" to replace wealth in the story? Pick out a few examples of how characters literally mean it when they say "I'm out of time," or "have a minute?"

How is the movie's message of wealth distribution and injustice relevant today?

Movie Details

In theaters : October 28, 2011
On DVD or streaming : January 31, 2012
Cast : Amanda Seyfried , Justin Timberlake , Olivia Wilde
Director : Andrew Niccol
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Twentieth Century Fox
Genre : Science Fiction
Run time : 109 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : violence, some sexuality and partial nudity, and brief strong language
Last updated : July 14, 2024

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Review: In Time Is Tepid Sci-Fi With an 'Occupy' Message

Image may contain Justin Timberlake Clothing Apparel Human Person Tie Accessories and Accessory

They should screen In Time at "Occupy" sleepovers around the country. It's a tepid sci-fi movie with a simplistic message about "Darwinian capitalism" that should resonate with the crowds assembling to protest the current state of affairs.

That message is: Rich people are bad and the system is rigged.

In the dystopian future nightmared up in the movie, which opens Friday, working-class zeros face a relentless industrial hell that makes our current debt-fueled recession look like a picnic. The blue-collar drones of In Time would never think of sitting around "occupying" Wall Street or anything else – in their world, time is literally money, and most people seem to be within a day or so of running out, which results in sudden death.

( Spoiler alert: Minor plot points follow.)

Image may contain Skin Word Arm and Text

Time is money, and individuals' constantly dwindling bank accounts are displayed on their forearms.

A $4 Starbucks latte seems like a bargain compared to In Time's paranoid PG-13 scenario, in which you trade four minutes of your life for a cup of coffee. In that horrible world, work a double at the factory and you might earn enough to sleep in, but the clock's always ticking.

What's worse, it's ticking in your arm. As explained in the movie's breezy prologue, some sort of genetic-engineering breakthrough has transformed human life so that everyone stops aging at 25, at which point they have exactly one year to live. Everybody's remaining time is conveniently tracked in florescent-green digital readouts embedded in their forearms. The upshot is that the rich are basically immortal, as long as they don't choke on a spoonful of caviar or wreck a fancy car.

It's an interesting concept, but that's about as deep as the thinking goes. In poor "time zones," the people are always running about in a hurry; in the rich sectors, the elites relax and gamble away spare decades. As the movie unfolds, we get sinister glimpses of a deeper conspiracy afoot – laced with loopy talk about crashing the market if too much time gets into the wrong hands – all based on the concept that for a few to live forever, many must die. We also learn that the father of Will Salas (played by Justin Timberlake ) was some sort of freedom fighter, presumably in a half-hearted attempt to give the character depth.

This image may contain Clothing Apparel Human Person Jacket and Coat

Cillian Murphy plays a relentless time cop in In Time. Photos: Stephen Vaughan/20th Century Fox

What we're left with is basically a chase movie. Shortly after a suicidal time baron leaves his fortune to Salas, a disastrous turn of events sets him on a course for revenge. He makes his way to New Greenwich, where the rich people live, intent on making "them" pay. He quickly runs into Sylvia Weis ( Amanda Seyfried ), daughter of oily time baron Philippe Weis ( Vincent Kartheiser ).

After she lays out the dilemma of the rich – living in fear, they shy away from any type of risk – she and Salas share a little bit of old-fashioned skinny-dipping as she discovers the raw joy of the ocean. Soon he's kidnapped her and the pair are off and running, dodging cops known as Timekeepers and time-thieving thugs known as Minutemen. (There's plenty of that kind of time-oriented punning in the movie, so brace yourself – you can almost set your watch by it.)

Director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, S1m0ne) obviously loves thinking big thoughts. "When I was doing Gattaca," he told Film School Rejects, "I knew the holy grail of genetic engineering was to discover the aging gene, and switch it off . You'll see, even in Gattaca, the symbol of the genetically superior in this world is the infinity symbol. Obviously, their goal was to live forever.... [The two movies are] not intentionally tied together, but the implications are so great. If everyone could live forever, then there would be massive overpopulation, so that's why I came up with the idea of trading time."

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Unfortunately, this high concept could use some solid grounding. Niccol is making an extremely timely (forgive me) if ham-handed argument about the roles of the rich and the poor in a capitalist system, but all the broad-brush talk about the abuses of the superwealthy and the importance of valuing your remaining time on Earth does nothing to elevate In Time beyond the pseudo-intellectual realm. None of it feels very visceral or all that original.

We're left with an action movie with stylish cinematography, ridiculous arm-wrestling duels and cerebral ambitions. Timberlake is undeniably good at running, and he's not a half-bad actor. In a movie almost devoid of special effects – the gritty slums and gilded mansions of various time zones are retro-futuristic, meaning we get sleek sports cars, not jetpacks – Seyfried's beautiful bug eyes steal the show. The two main characters are likable enough, and Cillian Murphy plays the creepy Terminator card as a stony Timekeeper intent on bringing Salas to justice, but it's hard to care about anybody's fate without the proper groundwork being laid.

Worse yet, In Time squanders its built-in mechanism for generating tension. When people "time out," their deaths are almost laughably simple. 24's ticking clock made for much more taut entertainment.

That's probably because, much like the Occupy movement , In Time can't seem to decide what it wants to be. Is it a Logan's Run ripoff? A Gattaca clone? A Total Recall parable about the oppressed working class? A sci-fi Robin Hood or Bonnie and Clyde?

In the end, it's a simplistic sci-fi story with clunky dialogue, few surprises and very little real insight into the human condition. They should've spent a little more time, or money, on the script.

WIRED High-concept sci-fi idea; badass retro-futuristic cop cars.

TIRED Dicey dialog; yet another dreary dystopia.

Read Underwire’s movie ratings guide .

See Also:- Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried Talk In Time's Sci-Fi Nightmare

Director Calls In Time 'Bastard Child of Gattaca'
New In Time Trailer Details 'Time Is Money' Sci-Fi Facism

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In Time (United States, 2011)

Andrew Niccol is fascinated by the impact of futuristic technologies on society. His gripping feature debut, 1997's Gattaca , explored a civilization in which genetic tinkering rendered natural reproduction obsolete. With In Time , he is again looking to the future and wondering where another technological breakthrough might take the human race. And, while his conclusions aren't as compelling as in Gattaca , following the path that leads to them is not without its occasional pleasures, small though they may be.

The problem with In Time , to the extent that it is a problem, is that an intriguing premise turns into window dressing for a somewhat routine Bonnie & Clyde-meets-Robin Hood action thriller with car chases, heists, and gunplay. Take away the science fiction element and this is a routine story about lovers on the run robbing banks and distributing their ill-gotten gains to legions of the poor. In the end, this concept might work better as a weekly TV series than as a stand-alone movie. 109 minutes isn't sufficient time to delve into the inner workings of this society, and that aspect is what gives In Time an injection of originality. It's a little like Michael Bay's The Island in the way the narrative fails to live up to the promise of its back story.

The setting is indeterminate. It might be the future although, judging from clues in the story, it would have to be at least a century beyond today, and there's little evidence to support a 22nd century milieu. More likely, it's in an alternate reality, a parallel universe that has evolved similarly yet differently from ours. In this world, time literally is money. People live and age normally until they're 25 years old. Then, the aging process freezes and they have one more year before they die. A greenish digital clock on their forearm informs them (and everyone else) how long they have until death. Those final 365 days are a commodity. Time can be bought. sold, traded, and stolen by the clasp of hands. One hour might buy ten minutes with a hooker. Rent might cost several days. Wages are paid in hours and minutes. For the working class, it's a constant struggle to keep the clock from hitting zero. For the rich, with hundreds or thousands of years in the bank, life moves in slow motion - forever young and nearly immortal. The class differences are extreme.

Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) shares living quarters with his mother, Rachel (Olivia Wilde). They look about the same age, but Rachel is 50 and Will is 28. Both live day-to-day and, when Rachel underestimates bus fare and can't reach Will in time to get a "recharge" on her time, her clock expires. Meanwhile, Will rescues a wealthy stranger from a robbery. The mysterious man has more than a century left but claims he is tired of the monotony of existence and gives the rest of his time to Will. Coupled with his mother's death, this propels Will on a journey that takes him into the "zone" where the high rollers live. After a successful trip to a casino, he is invited to a party at the house of one of the world's wealthiest men, Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser). When a Timekeeper (Cillian Murphy) corners him with an accusation of murder and theft, Will takes Weis' daughter, Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), hostage, and goes on the run. She quickly turns from captive to accomplice and the two go on a crime spree stealing time from banks owned by Philippe and distributing it to the undertrodden.

In Time is allegorical in a way that even the most literal viewer could not miss. Still, when viewed on a concrete level, the concept of people using time as currency opens up some fascinating possibilities, especially when one considers that the government is complicit with the wealthy in keeping the poor so close to death that they are too busy scraping by to do anything rash. The "futuristic" landscape in which this transpires doesn't look all that different from today, except that the cop cars bear a passing resemblance to KITT from TV's Knight Rider (although they don't talk).

Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, capable actors with potentially strong screen presences, are criminally underused. They make a cute couple but aren't given much more to do than play a generic action hero and his equally generic love interest. They run, they shoot, they kiss, they play strip poker (of the PG-13 variety), and they run some more. The more In Time devolves into formulaic action, the less interesting it is. The film is more engaging and inventive during its first half than during its second, and the conclusion is muddled and rushed as time constraints force it to end before the audience's patience reaches zero.

Niccol has done better work. Gattaca offers a glimpse of how he can spin science fiction concepts into a complex web and Lord of War is an underrated action film with a satirical bite. Here, although the skeleton is overly familiar, at least he dresses it uniquely. Trying doesn't mean succeeding, but at least the effort is there. And, plot holes aside (and there are a lot of them), In Time slips by quickly enough. Still, those with 109 minutes available might want to consider spending it elsewhere.

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Entertainment

Sucker Punch Review: Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid

S ucker punch: In theaters where this movie is playing, it’s a beverage sold at the concession stand.

Critics have descended upon the new film from director Zack Snyder ( 300 , Watchmen , Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole ) like vultures on roadkill. They excoriate it for being a PG-13 version of fanboy porn: for creating a world of teen hotties in bordello bondage fighting dragons and Nazi zombies and then not delivering the lurid goods. “You’ve heard of films wanting their cake and eating it too?” rants Slant’s estimable Ed Gonzalez. “ Sucker Punch promises cake and when you show up, it’s fruitcake, and you’re like, ‘What the f— is this s—?’ Because nobody likes fruitcake .”

So naturally, before I’ve even seen Sucker Punch , I’m interested. I do like fruitcake movies — not as in the heavy nut-filled Christmas confections but as in insanely visionary riffs that challenge the status quo in this, the most timid, stolid period in cinema history. I’m the guy who loved the Wachowskis’ Speed Racer , who put Terry Gilliam’s dystopian parable Brazil on the all-TIME 100 Movies list, who found Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York a mind-opening trip to madness. I thought that Snyder, when he reprised 50 years of alternative American history in four minutes at the beginning of his 2009 film Watchmen , devised one of the most powerful and teeming sequences of any modern film. I’ll take a too-much movie over a too-little movie any day. Other reviewers are welcome to embrace the anodyne realism of The Kids Are All Right and Blue Valentine . Let me eat fruitcake.

(Watch video of 2011’s top actors discussing showbiz.)

A quarter-century ago, at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design, Snyder numbered among his classmates Michael Bay ( Transformers ) and Tarsem Singh ( The Fall ); his own movies, usually shot on bare stages with long takes, bodies twirling in slo-mo and lots of green-screen work, might be located at the midpoint between Bay’s pummeling soullessness and Singh’s epic surrealism. Snyder made his name with garish movies based reverently on famed comics: Frank Miller’s 300 , Alan Moore’s Watchmen . Now, with co-writer Steve Shibuya, he tries an original story — which is to say a pastiche of every lubricious girl-power film ever made.

The premise: back in the 1950s, when twin teens are about to inherit their mother’s fortune, their wicked stepfather kills one of the girls, pins the murder on the other — Emily Browning’s Baby Doll — and sends her to the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane. (This impressive opening sequence is scored to the Eurhythmics’ ’80s hit “Sweet Dreams,” and you’re supposed to connect the name of the asylum to the duo’s lead singer, Annie Lennox.) Learning that she is to be lobotomized in five days, Baby Doll soars or plunges into an alternate reality where the madhouse is a high-end whorehouse and her fellow inmates are her brothel sisters, ready to join her in a five-part quest that could lead to their freedom.

(See the top 10 movies of 2010.)

You could say that Sucker Punch is a nymphet version of The Snake Pit or Shutter Island, or a live-action, green-screened redo of The Powerpuff Girls, or Black Swan (Carla Gugino has the demanding dance master role here) with a higher nightmare quotient, or an $82 million tribute to Jess Franco’s sublimely cheesy women-in-prison movies of the ’70s, or an Americanization of Norifumi Suzuki “pinky violence” melodramas ( Girl Boss Guerrilla, Sex and Fury ) of the same decade, or, in its backstory about a decent girl deprived of her inheritance and consigned to grow up in a prisonlike environment, a gloss on mid-19th-century classics from Jane Eyre to Little Dorrit . With the action scenes playing like production numbers in some high-concept musical, you’ll be reminded of Julie Taymor’s Beatles fantasia, Across the Universe . The visual palette suggests the creepy pastel paintings of Guy Peellaert ( Rock Dreams ); the fantasy battles with monsters and samurais echo the muscular landscapes of Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo. The movie is like an arrested adolescent’s Google search run amok.

The teen boy who would get lost in that cyber wonderland — he’s also Sucker Punch ‘s target demographic — is meant to fixate on the five girls who go questing. Known only by their prostitute pseudonyms, they include whey-haired sisters Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) and Rocket (Jena Malone), a brunette called Blondie ( High School Musical ‘s Vanessa Hudgens) and the Asian Amber (Jamie Chung). Snyder doesn’t bother much with differentiating these four, as they may simply be personalities fever-dreamed by Baby Doll. That’s Browning, who with the giant eyes, puffy lips and fake eyelashes could be her own anime doll, the whole package dressed in a Japanese schoolgirl outfit as retailored by Victoria’s Secret.

(See photos of the movies’ best-loved costumes.)

Odd, then, that the film’s erotic temperature is so tepid. That could be due to the restraints on leering imposed by a PG-13 rating, but more because Snyder is a picturemaker, not a moviemaker. He’s an art director, not a dramatist. Even a movie that means to be hallucinatory — and sets its big scenes to head songs like “White Rabbit,” “Where Is My Mind” and the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” — has to energize the in-between talky parts with a little craft and tension. Sucker Punch has vast empty patches, deserts of dead air, especially in scenes dominated by the head villain, Blue (Oscar Isaac), whose endless monologues could be a show reel of the thousand would-be De Niros or Turturros or Leguizamos who flunked their Actors Studio audition. (In Watchmen , too, Snyder got subpar work from some very sharp actors.)

Too much of Sucker Punch gave me the feeling I was peering into a terrarium where the flora was gorgeous but the fauna sluggish. Doggedly hoping the movie would scale the heights of wretched excess, I found that it wussed out on divine delirium; it lacked the courage of its basest pop-cultural convictions. I like this kind of movie — just not this movie. Ultimately, I guess, Gonzalez was right: Sucker Punch is the wrong kind of fruitcake.

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In Time (2011)

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COMMENTS

"Time is Money."
In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. "Time is Money.". — Ben Franklin. Action. 109 minutes ‧ PG-13 ‧ 2011. Written and directed by. Andrew Niccol. The premise is damnably intriguing. Written and directed by Andrew Niccol, maker of such original sci-fi movies as "Gattaca" (1997) and "S1mOne" (2002), it.
In Time
Rated 4/5 Stars • Rated 4 out of 5 stars 06/30/24 Full Review Martin R I like the massage in the movie that the time is the most valuable ... 2011, Wide. Release Date (Streaming) Jan 1, 2014 ...
'In Time,' SciFi Film With Justin Timberlake
In Time. Directed by Andrew Niccol. Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller. PG-13. 1h 49m. By Manohla Dargis. Oct. 27, 2011. The tick tick tock of the mortal clock gives the science-fiction thriller "In Time ...
In Time (2011)
In Time: Directed by Andrew Niccol. With Justin Timberlake, Olivia Wilde, Shyloh Oostwald, Johnny Galecki. In a future where people stop aging at 25, but are engineered to live only one more year, having the means to buy your way out of the situation is a shot at immortal youth. Will Salas is accused of murder and on the run with a hostage.
In Time (2011)
Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried star in the new sci-fi action film "In Time". Will Salas (Timberlake) and Silvia Weis (Seyfried) live in a futuristic world where time is the currency. In this world, people stop aging at 25. Once they turn 25, they only have one year to live, unless they find a way to get more time.
In Time
Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 26, 2023. Don Shanahan Every Movie Has a Lesson. The high concept science-fiction played out in "In Time" is as uniquely original, stylish, challenging ...
In Time (2011) [Reviews]
In Time Blu-ray Review. Feb 2, 2012 - A good, but very flawed sci-fi actioner. Gattaca. R.L. Shaffer. In Time Review. Oct 28, 2011 - You gotta get up awful early to conjur a sh!@ worth giving this ...
In Time
In Time A fascinating philosophical conceit delivered as a slick, hyper-stylized conspiracy yarn, juicy enough to deliver on both fronts, provided you don't ask too many questions.
In Time
In Time - Metacritic. 2011. PG-13. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. 1 h 49 m. Summary In a future where time is literally money, and aging stops at 25, the only way to stay alive is to earn, steal, or inherit more time. Will Salas lives life a minute at a time, until a windfall of time gives him access to the world of the wealthy, where ...
In Time
Rated. PG-13. Runtime. 109 min. Release Date. 10/28/2011. In his latest study into the encroachment of science on humanity, writer-director Andrew Niccol considers Benjamin Franklin's axiom "time is money" to a literal degree. Much akin to his feature debut, 1997's Gattaca —a film where the quality of your genetic code determined your ...
In Time (2011)
All Reviews Editor's Choice Game Reviews Movie Reviews TV Show Reviews Tech Reviews. Discover. Videos. ... Sep 22, 2011 - Time is running out for Justin Timberlake. In Time (2011) Daniel Krupa.
Movie Review: In Time (2011)
But despite what In Time is not, it remains a creatively clever concept picture with a really sharp imagination. It tickles the mind and acts as a strong, inventive reminder that while a fancy cup of coffee may be expensive in our world, at least it doesn't cost us our lives. Critical Movie Critic Rating: 4. Movie Review: J. Edgar (2011)
IN TIME Review
In Time review. Matt reviews Andrew Niccol's In Time starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Vincent Kartheiser, and Cillian Murphy.
In Time (2011)
In Time (2011) C+ SDG Original source: National Catholic Register In Time is the latest offering from writer-director Andrew Niccol, whose previous films include Gattaca, a sci-fi tale about genetic haves and have-nots, as well as S1m0ne, a Hollywood satire that represented in its own way a pursuit of an ideal of perfection by technological means. ...
In Time: Film Review
In Time: Film Review. Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried star in Andrew Niccol's dystopian film, giving new currency to Benjamin Franklin's infamous quote, "Time is Money."
In Time Review
In Time (2011) In Time Review You gotta get up awful early to conjur a sh!@ worth giving this movie. By ... In Time lurches into chase-movie mode, as Will sets out like Robin Hood to steal from ...
In Time (2011)
In Time (2011) - Movies, TV, Celebs, and more... Much like Niccol's "Gattaca," in which genetic perfection rather than time was the weapon a small group of snobby, unworthy elites used to hold down the meek masses, In Time is a chilly, stiff movie where clever ideas are delivered as self-righteous sermons.
In Time
Will, when he comes into some unexpected time, gives his best friend a decade. But his friend—who seems to spend a great deal of his spare (and not-so-spare) time at the local watering hole—wastes it all on booze and literally drinks himself to death, leaving behind a wife and baby. Others drink wine and champagne.
In Time Movie Review
Our review: Parents say (12 ): Kids say (44 ): The first half of IN TIME is stylish and original and offers just enough action and punny time jokes to be genuinely entertaining without being over the top. Parading an all-star cast of talented actors, led by the always charismatic Timberlake, the movie is by turns a thriller, a treatise on the ...
In Time
In Time is a 2011 American science fiction action film written, produced, and directed by Andrew Niccol. Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried star as inhabitants of a society that uses time from one's lifespan as its primary currency, with each individual possessing a clock on their arm that counts down how long they have to live. Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser, Olivia Wilde, Matt Bomer ...
Review: In Time Is Tepid Sci-Fi With an 'Occupy' Message
Oct 28, 2011 5:45 PM. Review: In Time Is Tepid Sci-Fi With an 'Occupy' Message. ... (There's plenty of that kind of time-oriented punning in the movie, so brace yourself - you can almost set ...
In Time
In Time (United States, 2011) October 28, 2011. A movie review by James Berardinelli. Andrew Niccol is fascinated by the impact of futuristic technologies on society. His gripping feature debut, 1997's Gattaca, explored a civilization in which genetic tinkering rendered natural reproduction obsolete. With In Time, he is again looking to the ...
IN TIME (2011)
Here is my review and analysis of Andrew Niccol's 2011 science fiction movie, In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried.Support this channel on...
Sucker Punch Review: Don't Drink the Kool-Aid
A quarter-century ago, at Pasadena's Art Center College of Design, Snyder numbered among his classmates Michael Bay (Transformers) and Tarsem Singh (The Fall); his own movies, usually shot on ...

“Time is Money.” — Ben Franklin

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