In Time

★★

(2012)

Another Sci-Fi film which sadly falls into the category of being “well imagined but poorly executed” Andrew Nichols’ In Time is an obvious parable for modern capitalism in which time has become currency. It’s premise is simple; everyone on earth stops ageing at 25 and a glowing green timer on their arm displays their last year on earth making 4 minutes for a cup o joe a real stretch of anyone’s budget.

Will Sales (Justin Timberlake) is no exception. He works day to day to be able to live another, working for seconds and minutes in a factory which makes the devices that will ultimately decide whether he lives or dies (note: irony). After his mother (who has been 25 for 25 years) “times out” and a jaded, bored business man with over a century of time transfers his life to Sales, Will leaves the slums and heads across the time-zones to “New Greenwich” a utopia of wealth, to uncover the few corrupt high fliers controlling the lives of the many.

The downfall of In Time begins with the kidnapping of Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried) a wealthy heir to a timely industrialist and it becomes a strange kind of hero film dabbling in Robin Hood and Bonnie and Clyde so bullishly it’s almost laughable. In pursuit is Timekeeper (Cillian Murphy) who seems so out of place and physically week in his role that Timberlake and Seyfried may as well be running away from an older brother who could do no more than give them a Chinese burn or fart on their heads.

In Time looks nice (it’s luminously shot by the faultless Roger Deakins) but the sprawling and complex idea’s of eternal life and humanity laid out by Nichol’s wonderful Gattaca are resold and retrodden here in a cumbersome, obvious and drab way.