Sci-Fi In Time (2011)

Title: In Time

Tagline: Time Is Power

Genre: Action, Thriller, Science Fiction

Director: Andrew Niccol

Cast: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Olivia Wilde, Alex Pettyfer, Johnny Galecki, Matt Bomer, Vincent Kartheiser, Yaya DaCosta, Toby Hemingway, Bella Heathcote, Shyloh Oostwald, Emma Fitzpatrick, Will Harris, Michael William Freeman, Jesse Lee Soffer, Aaron Perilo, Zuleyka Silver, Colin McGurk, Laura Ashley Samuels, Ray Santiago, William Peltz, Christiann Castellanos, Abhi Sinha, Maximilian Osinski, Kristopher Higgins, Germano Sardinha, Nick Lashaway, Brendan Miller, La Monde Byrd, Paul David Story, Blake Sheldon, Collins Pennie, Melissa Ordway, Ethan Peck, Korrina Rico, Seema Lazar, Adam Jamal Craig, Andreas Wigand, Sasha Pivovarova, Luis Chávez, August Emerson, Cathy Baron, Kris Lemche, Sterling Sulieman, Rachel Roberts, Jeff Staron, Drew James, Swen Temmel, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Matt O'Leary, Trever O'Brien, Faye Kingslee, Patrick Salway, Adrianna Adams, Sloane Avery, Nick Benseman, Skyler Bible, Matthew Broadley, Alyssa de Boisblanc, Alycia Grant, Mary Elise Hayden, Laura Henschel, Spencer Kayden, Christian Madsen, Skyler Maxon, Corbin McCarthy, Adam McManamy, Sam Meader, Marcos Mateo Ochoa, Ernest Pierce, Talon Reid, Sarah May Sommers, Jason Weary, Michael James Wong, Jason Woods, Giggi Yazicioglu, Mo Aboul-Zelof

Release: 2011-10-27

Runtime: 109

Plot: In the not-too-distant future the aging gene has been switched off. To avoid overpopulation, time has become the currency and the way people pay for luxuries and necessities. The rich can live forever, while the rest try to negotiate for their immortality. A poor young man who comes into a fortune of time, though too late to help his mother from dying. He ends up on the run from a corrupt police force known as 'time keepers'.
In Time (2011)

 
Film: In Time (2011)


In Time has a classic SF plot by writer/director Andrew Niccol, set a century and a half into a dystopian future in which everyone stops ageing when they reach 25 and can potentially live forever. The catch is that the universal currency is not money but the minutes and hours of people's lives, known as "living time". Everyone has a clock/calendar built into their forearms which counts down in real time, and from which extra time is deducted whenever they purchase anything or transfer time to someone else; they can similarly add time by earning (or stealing) it. Run out of "living time" and you drop dead on the spot. Most people struggle to earn enough time to continue living day by day, especially as prices are kept rising (and wages falling) by the controlling class of super-rich, who genuinely can live forever - as long as they do nothing stupid. They live in luxurious secure zones which cost months of living time just to enter. The following review contains some minor spoilers.

Will Salas (well portrayed by Justin Timberlake, someone who's name is very familiar but whom I can't recall ever having seen before) is one of the poor, constantly at risk of running out of living time but a man of principle who shares out what he has among his friends. He helps a member of the rich who gets into trouble while slumming down-town, and finds himself with more living time than he has ever dreamed of. The questions are; what will he do with it, and can he avoid the attentions of local gang leader Fortis (Alex Pettyfer) and police "Timekeeper" Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy)?

Salas uses his new wealth to head uptown where he meets Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser), one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, and his daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried) who is immediately attracted to the dangerous and exciting Salas. But what future can they find in the face of the powerful forces opposed to them, and can they do anything to mitigate the unfairness of the stratified society?

This film has echoes of others, most obviously Logan's Run in which everyone dies at the age of 30, but In Time has a darker and more adult feel, more reminiscent of Bladerunner and especially Gattaca. It isn't as good as those two, but it's still one of the better recent SF movies and well worth watching.




(This entry is cross-posted from my science-fiction & fantasy blog.)
 

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