![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/In-Time-215x300.jpg\" "\\"In-Time\\"")
In the future humans stop aging at 25. They have one more year to live unless they can refill the clock on their arms with more minutes, hours, or years. Jobs pay time; things cost time. In the future, time literally is money, and when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re broke, you die. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the premise of the newest Justin Timberlake vehicle, <\/em>In Time<\/em>. My expectations were sky high for Andrew Niccol\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s return to the sci-fi genre after the superb\u00c2\u00a0Gattaca<\/em>. Unfortunately, all we get this time is a poor-man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s MTV version of his previous opus, if that poor man had no money at all to his name. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m all over the place again; let me be concise, since time is life now: <\/em><\/strong>In Time<\/strong><\/em>=awful.<\/strong><\/p>\nJT plays Will Salas, who lives literally day to day in a future ghetto. Now, I understand it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the poor part of town because I am told so; honestly, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think the filmmakers have ever seen an actual housing project. This one features broad, clean boulevards and no discernible street crime. Also, everyone is beautiful. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually a recurring theme in the entire film; there are no ugly people in the future. I guess they discovered immortality-tech after eugenics-ing fat people away. Anyway, life is tough for Will Salas, and his hot-25-year-old-looking-mother, played by Olivia Wilde. They both work menial, low-paying jobs, and don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to ever have more than a few hours left on their arms.<\/p>\n
Everything changes when Will meets a rich man with over 100 years on his arm named Henry Hamilton (TV\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Matt Bomer). \u00c2\u00a0Hamilton is tired of being handsome and rich and living forever because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6well, life is a burden, bro. So he decides to gift all his remaining years to Will, and then commit emo-cide. Soon after, Will\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mom dies because life is unfair, and Salas waves his fist in the air, yelling \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Kahnnnnn!!!!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d No, just kidding. He does swear to take it to the man, and break the horribly unfair system by crashing into the rich part of town. The city is divided into different time zones, and migrating around is tough since it costs money to change zones, so the rich people all live here, and the poor people all live there etc. This aspect of the theme was mildly interesting, as everyone always runs in the poorer areas, where time is at a premium, but rich people walk leisurely, and take their damn time. Though everyone in the film looks like this<\/a>; so I guess rich people must do cardio at some point too\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n The rest of the movie is sure to make the kids happy since it showcases hip stylez and even better looking people, with even less thematic content. I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go into more plot details because I have been told I spoil stuff too much, but just broad strokes: Will teams up with a hot chick (Amanda Seyfried, who will always be little Karen Smith from <\/em>Mean Girls<\/em> to me) and goes Bonnie and Clyde\/Robin Hood on the rich people, stealing time from banks and the affluent and giving it to the poor. They are constantly hounded by the time keepers, who are sort of time policemen, led by Detective-like person Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy), whose aims and ideology are imperceptible, and somehow also contradictory, and in the end mean nothing anyway.<\/p>\n The film\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s antagonist is supposed to be hyper-rich man, and maybe president of the city, Philippe Weis (Mad Men<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Vincent Kartheiser), but, honestly, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the most likable character onscreen. Weis is more than civil to Will when they first meet, and later on displays genuine concern over his daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kidnapping. He is presented as evil just by being wealthy and immortal and not sharing his infinite life with other people. Oh yea, the metaphor is\u00c2\u00a0tha<\/em>t shallow. Is it even a metaphor? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just sort of literal. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m way liberal myself, but even I found the sophomoric socialist stuff distasteful.<\/p>\n The one aspect of ageless immortality that is barely adequately explored is how no one ages. The film\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first scene shows Will approach an attractive lady, and seemingly go in for a kiss on the lips, which then switches to a peck on the cheek. We then find out the woman is his mother. Weis later jokes with Salas asking him whether that attractive lady over there is his daughter, mother, or wife. I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t spoil the surprise, but anyway, Oedipus would love the future.<\/p>\n Visually, the film is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6interesting I guess (sigh). It employs the same ageless aesthetic as Niccol\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s previous work Gattaca<\/em>. It seems less a future, and maybe more an alternate reality. Everything in the city is slick and modern and zen, but Weis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 seaside villa alludes to the Riviera. The one in France, not in Las Vegas across from Circus Circus. The cars and clothing also exhibit a blend of classic themes interpreted through modern veneers. The music is non-descript and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know if it had music, really. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just glad they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t slap some techno over the dialogue like in 80% of all sci-fi, because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the future, so music must be electronic.<\/p>\n JT isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bad in his role; he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really a pretty good actor in general, I think. Amanda Seyfried is great as Sylvia Weis, Philippe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daughter. Her haughty, presumptuous attitude quickly evaporates once she is torn from the comforts of the upper crust. However, after she conquers her initial fears, Sylvia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s childish energy fills the screen with merriment. She is quite charming, even while shooting a gun. Cillian Murphy is awful, as he always is, but in all fairness this time around he was handed the most poorly constructed character in modern cinema. The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153climax\u00e2\u20ac\u009d where detective-like Leon faces down against Salas is ridiculous. You will know what I mean, if you end up disregarding my advice and watching this bad movie.<\/p>\n Basically, we are handed an interesting sci-fi concept that is never explored adequately. Agelessness and immortality is such a loaded theme; 2 hours should be more than enough time to explore any of the myriad social implications. Instead, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re given 100 minutes of car chases, gun shots, and Wall Street attack ads. And what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s up with the awkward arm wrestling stuff? Everyone keeps mentioning \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fights\u00e2\u20ac\u009d throughout the film, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m expecting some crazy future immortality cage fighting\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6it ends up being awkward arm-wrestling. Skip\u00c2\u00a0In Time<\/em>; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bad.<\/p>\n Later days,<\/p>\n Sagramore<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the future humans stop aging at 25. They have one more year to live unless they can refill the clock on their arms with more minutes, hours, or years. Jobs pay time; things cost time. In the future, time literally is money, and when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re broke, you die. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the premise of the newest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":1912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false},"categories":[256,9,244],"tags":[265],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/In-Time.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}