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Produced, written and directed by Andrew Niccol, ‘In Time’ is a rare breath of science fiction air, as a film that almost hints with ideas as strong as ‘The Matrix’, but almost runs low in story and development after the half-way mark.
Ace up the sleeve
The premise of ‘In Time’ however is extremely strong, as it holds up its sleeve an ace that causes it to be recommended highly to anyone who understands that science-fiction appearing anywhere, usually holds a massive subtext of importance – apparent to the future development of the human race.
The strength of the idea – that time has become currency at some future point in history, could easily be mocked by the cynical as far from any difference from the present.
Time is money
Some negativity or understanding has in present life become that ‘time’ is already a form of currency. Try getting a plumber on a weekend for example, or even persuading someone to do something on a Friday afternoon if they’re in London. The motive will reveal that the concept of time is simple – people rarely have enough of it to spare, unless money is involved somehow.
The writer of ‘In Time’ has at first masterfully combined the beginning of a story that should appeal to anyone who has forgotten that time is illusionary and a noun after all.
Brilliant idea at its base
Andrew Niccol manages to write well enough to combine the future society as being born with their own personal clock and yet the parallels to how controlled by time people have become, reveals a movie that has a brilliant idea at its base but could have paralleled ‘The Matrix’ if there was more to the story.
If Director Andrew Niccol has achieved anything however, it is a worthy note to how in the present people have managed to combine time with their own mortality and it is this observation that ‘In Time’ works well with and its observation is extremely clever as are most observations in the broadness of science-fiction.
Fascinating film
‘In Time’ is worthy of seeing however. It’s a fascinating film and its points are well made, but it suffers as a drawn out piece of work and has an influx of gratuitous chase scenes, merely added to fill out the allotted length of the film. Although, before this does occur, some of its points are extremely well-made.
‘In Time’ raises enough points to consider and has to be admired for having achieved a rare amount of insight for a 90-minute film, but it misses with its approach and yet the idea of paying someone with an extension on their mortality, is merely a future form of slavery and ‘In Time’ demonstrates that this is where such a system is extremely corrupt.
Two third go, one third banal
Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried work well throughout and about two thirds of the film work, but if anything, the direction of the film runs out with a remaining third of banality.
Although ‘The Matrix’ caused an almost Copernicus revolution with its almost divine revolution of conscious development, ‘In Time’ could easily have become a cult classic if the dialogue had some humour in it a la John Carpenter.
As a film that will provoke thinking and consideration with good conversation though, ‘In Time’ is worthy of attention as its message of sub-text is resoundingly clear – take direction of your own time as its precious value will not be repeated – mortality exists for everyone.
