Movie Moxie Presents In Time

Studio: Regency Enterprises
MPAA Rating: PG 13
Director: Andrew Niccols
Review Rating: 6.5

In an alternate future where people are engineered to stop aging at 25, and the only way the poor and lesser folk can get more time is to beg, barter or steal for it, a young man from the wrong side of the tracks take a rich girl hostage to win more time!

I could give a flip that it’s Justin Timberlake. Matter of fact, him being the main star of the movie may be what caused me to wait so long to watch it, despite what sounded like an interesting premise. This whole poor boy with a heart of gold character they have Timberlake playing doesn’t work – for his so-called acting skills, or for the movie itself for that matter.

So it’s an alternate future where, if I have this right and I might not, human beings are now engineered to not age past 25. Everyone has a lightup clock imbedded in their forearms, telling them precisely how much time they have left. After 25, you apparently have to be rich, or literally work yourself to death, to get more time. Everything is now paid for in time increments, up to and including your cup of coffee and the coffee break itself. Okay, I’m with the plot so far, I think. Will Salas is a good ole working boy who wants nothing more than to save his mother Rachel (Olivia Wilde) who’s lived considerably past her allotted time, and break out of this class system that’s literally killing them. By sheer happened
to be there coincidence, Will saves rich Henry Hamilton (Matt Borner) from a beat-down and robbery, only to wake to find that Hamilton’s gifted him with the equivalent of 116 extra years of life and taken a swan dive off a bridge. The police force known as the Timekeepers, led by Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy), immediately take off after Will. Poor Will tries his best to transfer the new time to his dying mother, and manages to fail completely, with the result of her dying in his arms. Will then takes his time, naturally, to a casino where after a tense showdown in which he manages to win yet more time, he takes up with the casino owners rich daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried). First the thought is ransom, then as they grow to care for eachother, their combined thoughts turn to revolution and the dissolution of the system that holds everyone in thrall and keeps the rich alive over the poor! In a rather Bonnie and Clyde fashion, Will and Sylvia begin robbing banks, let me get this straight, of actual blocks of time, to distribute to all and sundry and therefore level the playing field. And as for an ending, there kind of isn’t one? The film
just kind of peters out. Bah!

For such an interesting premise, they could’ve done so much more with the movie. I mean, why were humans engineered not to live past 25? They never even approached that plot point, and that’s what I wanted to know! Or how, how about how their scientists managed such a thing? Come on guys. The Director who brought us Gattaca could’ve done so much better here.

by

Alicia Glass