Time is Money

In Time takes the expression “time is money” literally. This is a future where time has become currency, payment is given or accepted from a person’s arm clock, everyone has 1 year to live after they turn 25, the poor live minute by minute, and the rich are practically immortal. In Time is similar to Logan’s Run for having a youthful society. Director Andrew Niccol openly admitted similarities to Gattaca. Both movies have retrofuturistic cars, an unlikely romance, and a protagonist who evades arrest in an effort to disrupt the established order. In Time sounded interesting when I first saw the trailer, but I lost interest after the less than stellar reception.

Justin Timberlake can act, but when he’s not expected to sing, it can be hard to take him seriously as an action star. He plays struggling factory worker Will Salas who lives in the ghetto with his mother. Seeing the very attractive Olivia Wilde as his mother can be a bit jarring the first time. Time Zones separate poor neighborhoods like Dayton from wealthy neighborhoods like New Greenwich. Minutemen are literal time burglars who steal time from the less fortunate. Timekeepers are a police force that operate day to day. Matt Bomer plays the century old Henry Hamilton who willingly gives Will all his time.

Which is what leads Cillian Murphy as an obsessive Timekeeper to hunt him down. Will enjoys his wealth, but it doesn’t last long. He ends up kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy elite with too much time on his hands played by Vincent Kartheiser. Amanda Seyfried is cute as a redhead, but I feel like she’s only around to be eye candy. Sylvia willingly joins Will on a Bonnie & Clyde style crusade to fight the system. Maybe it’s the cheesy dialogue or constant time puns, but In Time doesn’t quite land the way Gattaca did. Nevertheless, In Time was still worth my time for its creative depiction of the future.

Will and Sylvia go on the run