Music, Style & Culture

In Time

A fascinating premise and lashings of star power and gloss, it swaps intellectual musings for obvious metaphors.

Released in cinemas 1st November 2011.

Andrew Niccol is one of the most innovative sci-fi screenwriters working in Hollywood today, so anything with his name attached should pique genre fans' interest. Following his polished genetic-engineering debut Gattaca and glorious screenplay for The Truman Show, he hit a rough patch with S1m0ne and Lord of War. He now returns with a perfectly acceptable sci-fi blockbuster. With a fascinating premise and lashings of star power and gloss, it swaps intellectual musings for obvious metaphors, but remains highly enjoyable.

In Time is set in a future where the aging gene has been turned off. Humans are now engineered to stop aging at 25 and essentially become immortal. To counteract overpopulation, time has become the new currency, and must be earned to live. At 25 you are given one more year on the clock that glows in your forearm, with rent, food and travel eating away lifespan minute by minute until you earn more time. Run out? Literally drop dead in the street. It creates ghettos, or time zones, with the wealthy (with centuries, millenia on their clocks) separated from the poor, who live - literally, in this case - day to day.

Justin Timberlake stars as Will, a factory worker from the wrong side of the tracks. He lives with his mother (Olivia Wilde) and drinks with his best buddy Borel (Johnny Galecki, who is 36 and looks it, ruining the amusing effect of generations all looking the same age). When Alex Pettyfer's pitifully intimidating gangster turns up to steal time from Matt Bomer's tired-of-life centenarian, Will saves the day and ends up with a century on his clock. After a personal tragedy (which he recovers from remarkably quickly), he heads to New Greenwich to shake up the system, attracting the attention of poor little rich girl Amanda Seyfried and her timelending magnate father Vincent Kartheiser. Now accused of murder, he holds Seyfried as a willing hostage, on the run from Cillian Murphy's timekeeping cop.

Niccol has some great touches, but the film lacks that dystopian edge. Among the loan sharks and charities that provide time to the needy, the desperation of a world where the poor drop dead because bus fare is too much is a little too glossy. The rich zone of New Greenwich is curiously - deliberately - bland, with flashes of ostentation in a clinically grey future. There are bodyguards for the ridiculously rich, and the ladies all wear long gloves with their ballgowns so as not to flash their wealth in a vulgar fashion.

The science and practicality of timekeeping is swept aside for car chases and moments so daft they are distracting - Seyfried has several clothing changes, but her character continuously opts for miniskirts, tights and five-inch heels to go on the run, even jumping out of a first floor window wearing them. It creates a tonal imbalance that stops the film being taken seriously.

So much time is devoted to an escalating Bonnie & Clyde set-up, there's little explanation as to how and why a person's valuable time is capable of being transferred by mere wrist contact (arm wrestling is serious business in the ghetto). The protests in this brave new world boil down to "hoarding all the time is not fair", with no social awareness. The world Niccol creates is too insular and limited to feel like the epic sci-fi it could, and should be.

As an actor, Timberlake has proved himself more than adept at drama (The Social Network) and comedy (Friends With Benefits), but doesn't stand out as an action hero - to be fair, his Will is a simplistic character. Seyfried fares better, bringing strong will and charisma to her love interest/sidekick. Despite their chemistry, the inevitable romance feels token, and very little is done to make it feel necessary or desired. Murphy and Kartheiser bring a snooty, world-weary elegance to proceedings, but Pettyfer's hammy bad guy is awful.

All the frustration above stems from the dream that Niccol would match the terrifyingly PhilDickian world of Gattaca. Instead, we have simple, average blockbuster fare, which squanders its potential depth for star power and pretty posters in cinema foyers.

Rating: 6/10