In Time Review

First and foremost, I have changed the titles back to what they are, reviews. I tried to add different stylized titles, but they didn’t seem to work for the desired effect, so the review moniker is back again. We begin this week with a review of an interesting piece of science fiction starring a few people that you wouldn’t guess were in this film, especially if you only saw the original trailers. That being said, you absolutely knew that Justin Timberlake is the star of this movie, but what it was all about? Well, that was a bit of a mystery. The movie we are trying to review is In Time.

The film starts with a dystopian society, which is how a majority of great writers view the world in the future. I don’t think I’m quite as pessimistic but alas, I’m not a great writer. The future is quite difficult, where people must work for time, no longer money. In fact, the only currency is time, and makes anything else obsolete. This kind of worldview makes for an interesting conundrum for those that are living day-to-day, and literally only have 24 hours. We are introduced to characters on the sad part of the world, and they just want to be in the rich areas.

Much like the problems in economics today around the world, we are placed into a science fiction world where time is monitored by police, and there are banks that only cater to the rich, and loans that charge 30% interest on time. It’s an interesting world, but the lackluster futuristic options got to me. For instance, there are scenes where keys are used instead of any sort of high tech gadgetry. Even in 2012 we have keycards for hotels etc. Keys? How archaic. Not only that, a great deal of “futurisms” are placed into the backseat and we must just “believe” that the world that is presented is a plausible future. I don’t buy it, but that’s ok.

The movie flows fast, with our main hero looking more like superman than an average desperate person. He goes through the highs and lows in this very formulaic ride through what may or may not be in our near future. (of course it’s not in the near future, death has a 100% ratio of success) Visually the show is great, with lots of fighting, and interesting moments, but the attempt at being some sort of James Bond is lost on me, even though Timberlake tries really hard to fit that role. I didn’t really like the overall imagery, but there were some highlights in the way the director of photography framed the images. A lot of the backgrounds, colors, and actions were vivid, making for a lavish display of beauty amidst a lot of chaos.

Science fiction has a way of molding several genres to make their point heard. This film makes for an interesting take on currency, economics, and much more. I enjoyed the overall premise, but by the 4th act, I had already given up on the whole thing. I tried to rationalize it all instead of enjoying the show. Science fiction does that to me a lot; it will start with a great premise, then turn into a mess in the end. The end is a mess, and maybe that’s the whole point. In Time is a cool flick; I recommend it for its visual design, not the plot. The plot falls flat, but the visuals are somewhat great overall.