Justin Timberlake is just 'In Time'

In this film image released by 20th Century Fox, Justin Timberlake, left, and Amanda Seyfried are shown in a scene from "In Time." Credit: AP
"Four minutes for a cup of coffee?" shouts an outraged customer in the sci-fi parable "In Time." Welcome to the future, where time is the new money, the rich can live forever and the rest survive literally day to day.
It's an exaggerated version of our economically inequitable present, of course, and "In Time" starts out as a surprisingly incisive commentary on Wall Street wealth and systemic poverty -- not what you might expect from an action flick starring Justin Timberlake. It quickly turns silly and sappy, but not before sketching a grimly satirical picture of poor people dropping dead when they're finally outpaced by the high cost of living. Their dwindling bank accounts are not online but much closer to home, imprinted in green LEDs on their forearms.
Among these working stiffs is Will Salas (a serviceable Timberlake), who like most was programmed to die at 25 but keeps eking out days for himself and his 50-year-old mother (briefly played in a clever casting stunt by 27-year-old Olivia Wilde). When a wealthy but world-weary aristocrat bequeaths Will an entire century before keeling over, Will finds himself suspected of murder by a law-enforcing Timekeeper (Cillian Murphy).
Newly emboldened, Will sashays into the mansion of minute-magnate Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser) and woos his rebellious daughter, Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried). "The poor die and the rich don't live," says the thrill-starved girl, which explains why she begins playing Bonnie to Will's Clyde, knocking over time-banks, crashing the system and ticking off daddy.
Writer, director and producer Andrew Niccol has basically re-created his 1997 dystopian drama "Gattaca," in which eugenics was the source of social inequality, but "In Time" is far more frivolous, filled with amped-up fight scenes, unimpressive car chases and corny heroics. It's also rather sloppily conceived: Shouldn't these banks have better security? Like, say, some guards? "In Time" feels timely and topical, but it's not nearly the movie it should have been.
PLOT In a future where time is literally money, one man bucks the system. RATING PG-13 (violence, mild sexuality)
CAST Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy.
LENGTH 1:50.
PLAYING AT Area theaters.
BOTTOM LINE Occasionally clever and inventive, but the hokey action and sloppy writing might have you watching the clock.
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