Review: 5 out of 10
Andrew Niccol, a writer on “The Truman Show” and writer-director on “Gattaca”, has quite an impressive resume when it comes to sci-fi. His new film is based in a future where people don’t age past 25, but time is the new currency.
If u can’t earn more time, you’re dead once the ticking clock on your arm hits all zeroes. Justin Timberlake plays Will, a factory worker from the wrong side of the tracks who gets an unexpected gift when Henry, a 105-year-old man racked with guilt over exploiting the poor for his own benefit, decides to kill himself and leave Will his infinite amount of time.
The rich just keep getting richer off taxing the poor and Will decides to move into a more expensive time zone in order to turn the tables. He meets Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), the daughter of a rich industrialist (Vincent Kartheiser), and once a cop (Cillian Murphy) starts believing Will to be Henry’s killer, a long chase ensues where Will and Sylvia wind up becoming Robin Hood-style bandits.
Plot holes abound (how did this new currency system come into being?), but the bigger problem is how dull this future is as people seem to exist solely to achieve more time or talk about and make numerous cheesy references to it.
Rather than explore how these people are slaves to their own stopwatches, Niccol seems more interested in putting together an underwhelming action film filled with generic car chases, shoot-outs, and fighting (which in this future is two guys arm-wrestling til one emerges with all the time.
No i’m not kidding.), and the only real point that emerges is that capitalism is unfair to the poor. Here here for that important bit of insight but otherwise your movie is a forgettable bore.
