*Note: includes some spoilers.
I would argue that a boring film is worse than a bad one. What’s the point of having a good story and characters if it’s not fun to watch? “In Time” is far from a boring movie. So many times I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen, like watching a car accident where you can’t look away. This may be a dumpster-fire of a film, but it’s weirdly watchable. And I will take that over a snooze-fest any day of the week.
“In Time’s” concept is an original dystopia in which time is literally money. Everyone has a timer on their arms, and if it reaches zero, you die a painless death. A cup of coffee is four minutes, a train ride an hour, etc. The rich have millennia, while the poor are struggling with mere hours every single day. The concept is interesting and original, and it genuinely frustrates me to see how bad the filmmakers have wasted it.
They could have done literally anything with this idea, and they chose to make an uninspired Robin Hood ripoff with unlikable characters and a plot so ridiculous and nonsensical you want to turn the television off. But you don’t. Despite all that, the film hooks you with its stylish, fast-paced nature. “In Time” is the hot girl with zero personality. Great concept, great style, poor everything else.
Justin Timberlake plays the protagonist, Will Salas. Will lives in the poorest part of the country, making due with minutes a day. He’s clever, always getting more time in a pinch. Everything changes when a man with centuries comes into town and gives it all to Will. Will takes his newfound fortune and goes on a quest to bring the riches back into his hometown.
Amanda Seyfried in “In Time.” Photo: New Regency Pictures, 2011.
Olivia Wilde has a brief appearance as Will’s mom, and of course they’re the same age for some reason. I think this type of thing is where I really have a problem with this film. The writers make up illogical rules for themselves and then are like, “Oh well, I guess I have to follow them.” For instance, take how everyone stops aging when they’re 25. How does that even make sense? Of course, it’s just an excuse to cast only good-looking people, but it’s pretty inexcusable.
Amanda Seyfried plays Sylvia, this really rich girl who Will holds ransom for the rich to give back to the poor. They inevitably fall in love and she joins him on his crusade. There’s also Cillian Murphy, easily the best actor in the film’s roster. He plays the “Timekeeper” who’s searching for Will and Sylvia.
While some performances are better than others, every single character is the exact same type. They’re all quippy and stylish and skillful, and they always act calm and collected, even when it makes no sense in relation to the story. It’s frustrating to see these talented actors reduced to boring cardboard cutouts. Some could argue their nonchalant attitude is the result of their crazy environment, but that’s just lazy writing. If all the characters act basically the same way, they just get boring after a while.
Not to mention that many of Will’s lines just don’t make sense. For example, as he’s hijacking a car, he says something along the lines of, “Is it still stealing if it’s already been stolen?” Sure, that line sounds cool, but it’s gibberish if you put it into the context of the film. He’s trying to make a remark about how the rich have taken everything from the people, but they’re stealing a car from a random person. It doesn’t apply at all. I can’t express how often these nonsensical lines occur.
A great sci-fi premise is more or lest wasted in “In Time.” Photo: New Regency Pictures, 2011.
Two of the main characters die at the beginning of the film, both in the silliest way possible. Will’s mom dies because she didn’t have enough time for the bus ride home, causing her to have her clock run out. It works in the sense that it establishes the lethality of the scenario, but really? Wilde’s character has been living in the slums with Will for years, always surviving with only days or hours. You expect me to believe that she just forgot to recharge up her time one random day? It’s so apparently obvious that her death was just a plot device to push Will forward.
The second death bothered me even more. After Will obtains his century, he gives a decade to his alcoholic best friend. Not five minutes after the death of his mom, Will visits his house only to be told by his friend’s wife that he drank himself to death celebrating his new fortune. I laughed out loud. How the am I supposed to feel anything for a death of a character when not only are they uninteresting, but they died offscreen. One of the main characters died offscreen, and they just forget about it for the rest of the movie.
Another unbelievable character death was Cillian Murphy’s character at the end of the movie. They established that Timekeepers don’t keep much time on them so that they don’t get robbed. In the final chase, Murphy “forgets” to get more time and dies on the spot. For those counting, that’s two deaths because characters forgot to get the one thing that keeps them alive. It feels like they wrote all of the deaths and reverse-engineered from there. We want the Timekeeper to die so the plot can go on, so let’s make up a stupid scenario in which he never has lots of time on him. I’ve never seen a film actively force character arcs as much as this one.
Implausible deaths plot holes take down “In Time.” Photo: New Regency Pictures, 2011.
Easily the worst scene of the film is after a car-chase between Will and Sylvia and the bounty hunters tracking them down. They get hit off the road, flipping over multiple times at full speed with the hood down. Normally, everyone would be dead. So I was a little shocked when they walked out of the car without a scratch. But no. I wanted to give this film the benefit of the doubt. I thought: Okay, they don’t age past 25, perhaps the only way they can get hurt is if their clock reaches zero. And I felt better. For all the illogical rules, one plot hole was all patched up.
And then the next scene happened. After a run-in with the people tracking Will down, it transforms into a shoot-out, and various henchmen get shot down by Will. That’s when I was done trying to make any sense of this film. If Will can kill various people, that means that our protagonists survived a terrible car crash with the hood down. That entire plot hole could be fixed with one little line, saying, “Oh yeah, the only way people can die is if they have no more time.” But instead, they chose a bland shootout over plot coherency. In fact, this movie takes literally anything over plot coherency.
But why is it so fun to watch? Somewhere in this ridiculous, poorly-written, poorly acted-mess, I still want to see more of it. The combination of a promising concept and laughably bad execution draws in the audience even more. And honestly, good for them that they accomplished that. But it doesn’t change how much wasted potential this film has.
*”In Time” is available to watch on most streaming platforms.
