In Time

I felt morally obligated to see this film because it's science fiction, the genre I care about more than any other.

But sheesh.

I really had to make an effort.

Everything about In Time says "don't bother," starting with that lame title.

In Time?

Come on.

At least call the thing Just in Time, which has more heft, better rhythm, and the possibly dubious virtue of punning off the name of its lead, Justin Timberlake.

Yes, I would've been much happier going to see Just in Time.

But there's still that cast. Timberlake is pretty bland and inexperienced to carry a movie on his own -- no shame on him; it's a Herculean task -- Amanda Seyfried shouldn't really be in a movie at all, unless it's an E.T. remake and she's playing E.T., and Olivia Wilde, hotter than a nuclear furnace, still hasn't gotten herself into a decent movie. Does she even read the scripts she gets sent?

This means it's going to be the writer/director who will shoulder the burden of greatness. If [Just] In Time is going to succeed, it'll be because of Andrew Niccol, the man who brought us the forgettable sci-fi thriller Gattaca, and the further lumpen efforts, S1m0ne, The Terminal, and Lord of War.

The man has made a career of mediocrity.

Soooo it's off to the movies!

In Time explores an absurd near future where money has been replaced by time. You don't have dollars in your bank account, you have hours, days and weeks. Rich people have whole centuries. Working man Justin Timberlake -- suspension of disbelief begins now -- has less than a day. This means when he wakes up in the morning, he better show up at work to earn more hours than he spends. Otherwise the glowing digital clock on his forearm will dwindle to zero and he'll keel over dead.

Not content with this much stress in his life, Timberlake throws himself into harm's way helping a well-heeled but dissolute stranger escape the local gang of street toughs from a scrap in a bar.

In gratitude for Timberlake's help, the stranger gives him roughly a hundred years -- all the time he's got -- and then jumps off a bridge. Because he's depressed. Or he read the script and realized he was the catalyst who must provide the inciting incident.

The whole movie plays out like it was written by someone intimately familiar with Hollywood formula, as Niccol surely is, and someone devoted to slavishly following that formula, rather than using it as a springboard for creativity.

So there's a clean break into Act Two when Timberlake takes his bundle of time into the privileged sector of west L.A. -- oops, I mean New Greenwich -- and immediately checks into a ritzy Century City -- oops, I mean New Greenwich again -- hotel.

There he runs across Amanda Seyfried's sheltered heiress, and for reasons I can't determine, goes to the nearest casino and takes on Seyfried's dad in a high-stakes game of poker that will mean death for Timberlake if he loses.

The deck is clumsily stacked in his favor by Niccol, however, so he doesn't lose. (How cool would that have been?) Instead he gets invited to a fancy party in Malibu -- dang it, I mean New Greenwich again -- where he skinnydips with Seyfried and gets confronted by "timekeeper" police detective Cillian Murphy, who accuses Timberlake of having stolen his time from the dead, depressed guy.

You're not going to believe this, but a chase results, and the rest of the movie follows the conventional chase formula. Timberlake and Seyfried turn Bonny and Clyde slash Robin Hood, stealing time from the dastardly rich and redistributing it to the desperate poor.

What's most lame about In Time is not the paper-thin characters, rote plot or gimmicky premise. It's the utter lack of world-building. Beyond the time-for-money substitution, there is absolutely no difference between our world and the In Time world. That's an abdication of the central responsibility of the science fiction writer: to take us somewhere different.

Both Bladerunner and The Matrix took place in a contemporary or near future L.A., just like In Time does, but hoo boy, is there a lot going on behind the scenes in both worlds. One gets the sense there are many stories taking place every day in such imaginary worlds. The one we are watching just happens to be in the foreground.

That's a place worth visiting.

By contrast, In Time transports us nowhere visually, conceptually or thematically.It's just a cheesy crime thriller with a hasty coating of sci-fi varnish.

Which means it's not really sci-fi at all.

I've been had.

SCORE

How Accomplished: 28/100

How Much I Enjoyed: 26/100