In Time is a movie set in an undisclosed time in the future where the term “time is money” has literally become a reality. At the age of 25 one’s time inheritance kicks in and from that moment on they have to accumulate time in order to stay alive. In New Greenwich (where the upper class resides) this is no issue at all but in Dayton (the ghetto) everyone literally lives minute to minute not known if they’ll even make it through the day. The movie follows Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) a 28 year old who lives in Dayton with his mother (Olivia Wilde) as they try to survive Dayton even though the price of living and taxes are constantly being raised every day. One night while out at a bar with his friend Borel (Johnny Galecki), he meets a man from New Greenwich named Henry Hamilton who attracts the unwanted attention from a gang of robbers for flashing around how large wealth of time. Will decides to save him and after they get away, Henry explains to Will that he’s 105 year’s old and tired of living so he gives Will his 116 years as a gift and let’s his time run out. This ends up being a blessing and a curse though as now Will is accused of Hamilton’s murder. On top of that the ludicrous price of living catches up with Will’s mother on the day of her birthday which causes Will to go on a crusade to get back at have put the people of Dayton in such dire standings.

Going into this movie I’d already read some of the harsh reviews and so I was a tad bit discouraged because I’d really been looking forward to it ever since I’d heard about it last year. But after actually seeing it for myself I’m glad that I decided to go check it out despite of the critics because I actually really liked the movie. In Time’s a movie with a concept that’s so timely and intriguing that you can’t help but want it to succeed with in every way possible. The last time that I’d seen a movie with a concept with so much potential it was called Inception, and we all know how that turned out, so I had high hopes for this movie. For the most part I really feel like it lived up to my expectations with only a few things that I feel could’ve been done better. For starters I feel as if they didn’t push themselves as hard as they could’ve in this movie in terms of storytelling. While it was satisfying overall I think there were some elements of the story that could’ve been developed further or explained more to enhance the overall experience. If feel like there were little things that either weren’t explained enough or could’ve been left out completely that hindered the story a bit. Another thing that bothered me a bit was that there were ALOT of time puns and analogies in this film and it gets old pretty fast. Also because of the fact the whole “time being currency” angle, there are moments where it gets a bit confusing because they compare seconds, minutes, hours, etc to increments of currency.

Aside from those small things though I have nothing but positive things to say about In Time. One of the first things that I noticed about the movie and one of my favorite things about it is the movie is that it’s very well shot. It really makes alot of smart choices with lighting, set pieces and cinematography to really make the world look very drab and almost post-apocalyptic without actually being post-apocalyptic. It harkened back to that Mad Max retro/future style with a bit of James Bond thrown in that I really appreciate. Also I have to give props to the make up team because they really made the people of Dayton looked sickly and worn out to convincingly reflect the stressful nature of the way they live. They literally have to live as if they won’t make it through the hour and it really shows. I also found it really interesting and clever that they established clear differences between the people of Dayton and the people of New Greenwich all the way down to the way that the handle different situations. It’s that attention to detail that makes the movie stand out in my eyes. I also felt that the acting was either solid or real good across the board. Alex Pettyfer was much better in this than he’s been in his last two clunkers (I Am Number Four and Beastly) as he seemed to enjoy playing a villainous role, Matt Bomer and Olivia Wilde despite their youthful appearance, played their roles as older citizens with the right amount of exhaustion to make it convincing and Amanda Seyfried complimented Justin well and played a strong enough female protagonist to be the “Bonnie to his Clyde”. To me the two big standouts were Justin Timberlake and Cillian Murphy though. Cillian Murphy reminded me alot of Agent Smith in the first Matrix film with his by the book way of approaching things and the almost eerie calm that he maintained in almost all situations. Justin Timberlake was a strong lead in his first outing in the sci-fi/action genre and brought the right amount of charisma, energy and confidence to his character to really come off as a competent leading man.

All in all, In Time was actually a solid sci-fi film with a timely and ambitious concept that simply could’ve been better with tighter and smarter storytelling. The cast was good all around with Justin Timberlake serving as a strong lead for his first outing in the sci-fi/action genre. I for one really enjoyed it and feel like the critics were harder on it than it needed to be because they’re so quick to throw out the words “pretentious and heavy-handed” at anything with a strong message. I recommend it to anyone who’s in the mood for some good action this weekend. I doubt that you’ll be disappointed.

Rating: B