Optiluiz here once more with a Weekly Movie Review. After much commotion, I've finally decided that this week's movie will be the sci-fi thriller "In Time", written and directed by Andrew Niccol and starring Justin Timberlake opposite Amanda Seyfried.
In Time chronicles a future where no one ages past 25, and so, to avoid overpopulation, time (i.e. the time that's left for you to live) replaces money as currency. In that scenario, the rich can live forever while the rest of the population earns only enough for subsistence. When Timberlake's character uncovers a conspiracy regarding the distribution of time, he tries to fight the system and change the oppressive status quo.
You've probably noticed by now that I love science fiction. I think you can express a lot more through fiction, futurism and allegory than through direct story-telling. The story of In Time is, obviously, a very old one. With a working class hero fighting against a faulty system which ignores the vast majority of the populace. It's a tale as old as time, but still relevant today.
Despite the interesting concept, In Time isn't the solid sociopolitical allegory it could have been. Though the acting was pretty good (I'm only now learning to accept Timberlake as an actor and not just a pop music idol) and the overall story was decent, It wasn't enough to create a a good movie. It's not so much the individual elements themselves that were bad, but the execution of the film as a whole.
My biggest gripe was with the script. The dialogue felt forced at times, and there were way too many time puns. Seriously, you could have a drinking game in which you would take a drink each time someone makes a joke (intended or not) regarding time, though alcohol-poisoning would be inevitable. Other than that, the directing was pretty bland, and so was the production design. The future never looked so much like the present. Actually, I don't think technology evolved much after hundreds of years (the anti-aging technology and organic wrist-watches aside).
I've always said that I get angrier at mediocre films than bad ones, because the mediocre ones had a chance at being great, but failed. I'm angry with this film. There was so much wasted potential for the story, so many concepts to be further explored, but in the end we get a rather cliché rags-to-riches/Robin Hood mix with some romance thrown in. This is one of those cases where the source material wasn't bad at all, but the people in charge weren't creative enough to do something special with it. Oh well.
Even so, it's not an exceptionally bad movie by any means. It's thought-provoking at times, and the action scenes were okay, othar than this one car crash with horrible cgi which I would rather forget. Timberlake's, Seyfried's and Murphy's performances were pretty good, and I expect great things from them in the future. Overall, I recommend this if you've got nothing better to watch, at least it's better than most things in theatres at the moment. I give it a 6/10.
That concludes this week's review. Have a good one, readers. Be back on Friday for more humorous shenanigans. I leave you with the trailer for In Time.
Chainsaw cheers,
-Optiluiz out...
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