In Time
It would seem that every movie Justin Timberlake makes turns into a referendum on whether he is a good actor or whether he's just a good entertainer who happens to steal a few scenes... or.. I suppose.. whether he just plain sucks on screen. (I don't think he does. I actually think he has something of a natural and compelling screen presence. When given material suited to him, he can shine; like, say, in The Social Network). Unfortunately, if it does prove that every movie swings the pendulum of opinion in one direction or the other, In Time is going to swing it beyond solid, occasional scene-stealer to non-actor. To be fair, though, if every movie was a referendum on each casts' acting ability, pretty much everyone here would be in danger. I don't think there was a single performance in the movie that could be labeled "good"... or even "ok", "decent", "not horrible". (with the exception of -MAYBE- Johnny Galecki...maybe, but doesn't have enough screen time to qualify as a saving grace... or to excuse the Big Bang Theory [ok, I'm not a TV guy, but I have hated every minute I've seen of the show]).
Then again, it's not as though I can blame the actors. Well, I suppose more invested actors would try to make the movie work even though the dialog is horrendous. Just awful. The things they say... Amanda Seyfried and Olivia Wilde are the only ones who even bother trying to add an extra dimension to their one-note characters. And- with Galecki- the only ones who try to inject any kind of emotion. For the most part, wooden would be the best way to describe everyone's performance. Wooden and monotonous. But then, that's what the dialog encourages.
The basic premise of the movie actually held some potential. In a somewhat distant future, time has replaced money as the only source of currency. People age up to year 25 and then their clock starts ticking. Gifted one additional year of life, all earnings and transactions either add to this amount or take away from it. A bus ride, for instance, may add up to two hours of time. A cup of coffee will cost you a couple of minutes of your life. Once you run out of time/currency, you just keel over and die. It's called "timing out". You can die in more conventional ways...like gun shots to the face, but most people seem to time out, or not. Which makes for some interesting choices the characters face. An extra cuppa joe or life? Seeing how people survive in this scenario strikes me as intrinsically interesting. Adding other wrinkles including segregated time zones: those with longer lifespans can live in nicer areas (those grinding it out "one day at a time" could never have the time to move), time keepers attempting to keep people in their place to avoid the system running amok, and "minute men", gangsters who roam about and steal time from people on a whim (and yes with the label "minute men" you can begin to see where the absurdity starts to come into the picture), only would seem to add to the intrigue. Ah, but it's all in the execution. And here, it all comes off as partially realized, toothless, wooden formality. Oh, and hokey. (When a gangster threatens to clean everyone's clock if they don't give him the information he demands... well... its hard not to want to laugh... even though he's making an earnest threat. Clean their clocks? Come on, man... what's next? Yelling at them to get off your lawn?)
You know, a thought just occurred to me. It's actually pretty darn unoriginal too. It's basically Robin Hood set in a dystopian future. Robin (here: Justin Timberlake's Will Salas) sees inequality and despair dominating the landscape. He decides the only way to right all these ugly wrongs is to steal from the rich (personified here- in the Prince John role- by Vincent Kartheiser's Philippe Weis) and give to the poor. He is hunted down by the Sheriff of Nottingham-esque Time Keeper Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy). And he even has his Maid Marian- a rich brat of the establishment who he eventually wins over/falls for and who ultimately enlists in his cause- in Amanda Seyfried's Sylvia Weis. You can kind of imagine how this all plays out.
Should I be penalizing the movie for tackling the oft-tackled-to-the-point-of-being-universal story? After all, a bundle of movies pretty much can be summed up as being inspired by or knocking off the basic story of Robin Hood. (or bastardizing it, Russel Crowe's Robin Hood!) Yeah, I suppose downgrading it for its lack of originality in light of the number of times this same road has been traveled is probably pretty harsh... but.. then.. so is the movie. Harsh as in harshly bad. Director (and screenwriter) Andrew Niccol and company don't go to any effort to at least attempt to disguise the story cleverly. Or even use it as a thought-provocation device. This strikes me as a potentially- if accidentally- timely movie. But in reality it devolves into a Robin Hood sci-fi action adventure. Emphasis on devolve with little on genuine action. (Oh I forgot to mention, instead of Robin Hood's archery contest, there is a poker game). Getting back to effort, there actually appears to be little exhibited on screen. Other than effort at showing they were trying hard to be edgy and relevant with little thought on how to actually achieve edgy relevance. I'd say you achieve that by not trying so hard to be it, but rather to kind of let it happen. (Ok, that may not make any sense... what I was going for was no one who tries too hard to be cool is actually cool, right? Same principle here). Maybe it does take effort to come off as genuinely intriguing or riveting, but maybe it shouldn't be so noticeable. And maybe the dialog and over all writing should be better. And maybe the director shouldn't be satisfied with emotionless, wooden acting. And maybe they should try to give a traditional story a bit of a twist...
Yeah, maybe they should have just made a better movie.
Grade: D
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