Yes, I'm back. No, I wasn't killed and yes, I am still filled with rage, cynicism and anguish. To quickly sum up before I reveiw this film:
Point 1: I know, bad films have come out (Paranormal Activity 3), stop telling me
Point 2: Stop going to see the bad films if you know they are bad but are trying to kid yourself you may enjoy them
Point 3: Why didn't you go and see 'Don't be afraid of the Dark'?
Right, that's initial business sorted, it's time for a reveiw. Now it's been a while, so I am going to start off with something that wasn't entirley terrible and could actually be said to be a good film. Just a good film, nothing more.
'In Time' is a movie, plainly, set in a dystopian future, yes another one, where the single currency is time. At the age of 25 you no longer age so can theorhetically live forever, howerer an inbuilt body clock starts ticking down from one year and you have to earn time by working. A rather new, original concept for a movie that was the offspring of Director, producer and writer Andrew Niccol, who not only has a girls last name, but also has a brilliant method of subtly getting a message across.
The rich can live forever, exploiting the poor to keep all the time going through the system the right way and back up to their arms. Oh, to clarify, the body clock it quite literally a visual timer, built into peoples arms that counts down infront of you. When it reaches zero, your body convulses, stops working and dies. Anyway, the bourgeios rich keep rasing the prices in the ghetto areas of America to keep the poor dying and to keep them from getting more time. There are some very good contrast and compare scenes early on in the film, with the poor drinking their minutes away whilst the rich gamble centuries.
Enter our antihero will Salas, played suprisingly well by Justin Timberlake. After helping a very rich man who appears to have stumbled into the wrong part of town get away from a time gangster (That sounds adorable with his over the top english accent), Salas is gifted with all the rich mans time because he's 'Lived too long'. Now, exposition point 1, in my mind, that's one hell of a d*ck move. Coming to the lowest of the low areas, then declaring you want to die where those less fortunate die on the streets everyday. I'll amdit he gives his time to Will, but this then causes will to see the fault with the system and now, armed with 116 years on his arm, tries to go to the top and fix it himself.
After engaging in some pretty risky gambling where he bets with whole time on one card, he gets invited to the house of the man he just took 1100 years from. This is where we meet the feul for my perverted sex dreams Sylvia Weiss, here played by the beautiful, slender nomnomnomnomn Amanda Seyfried, of House. Amanda is a very beautiful, reckless, beautiful, dreamer of a beautiful woman beautiful. Sexy. And she is attracted to Will in a veuyeuristic sense, in as far as she has been stalknig him throughout town. The two go for a nice nude dip in the Weiss' back garden ocean, before the Time cops arriving and taking all but 2 hours of Wills time that was 'illegally gifted'. This is because the rich do not want the time going to the por as it will upset the balance of power in the World. This made almost no sense to me as to why the wouldnt want their customers to have money, depsite the half hashed idea that 'for some to be immortal, many must die, morality running through the film, until I realised that Niccol isn't a very subtle writer at all.
After hijacking Sylvia, crashing their beautiful sports car filled with beautiful Amanda and her lovely legs and....Excuse me. *slaps* They both have their unconcious bodies mugged for all but 10 minutes of their time, and they then run through the ghetto, stealing time from the corrupt system. Crashing banks, taking all the time and Robin Hooding through out the ghetto, trying to get the system to collapse and make it fair and to stop the poor from dying so the rich can live forever.
Oh, and during this time the two fall in love and I am forever jealous of Justin timberlake because he got to straddle a semi-naked goddess and kiss her lips. One day you will be mine.
The film goes on like this, their hesits getting bigger and bigger untill they take 1million years from Weiss' father and distribute throughout the ghetto, causing the whole system to collpase. The head of the time police, who has been hunting them the whole time, forgets to wire more time to his account during a tense final scene, which I am neatly glossing over, with all three of the characters time running out, the time cop finally runs out just as he was going to win, and of course, our heroes get away again.
There are good subplots in this film, the death of Wills mother at the beginning is copied shot for shot with the moments as Will and Sylvia frantically try to share time before Sylvias runs out. The running mention of Wills father, who is originally thought to be a gambler with his time, as a hero, trying to do the same as Will but got murdered by the time police. The world thhat Niccol created was a ruthless, dog eat dog OH WAIT NO.
It took me 40 minutes of this movie to relaise something. This film was shot in around 8/10 months. Add to that writing, casting, greenlighting, gettinf funding and script editting, it take the whole process to around 3 years, as this film wasn't a big budget Hollywood epic fandazidozie of a feature. That puts the ideas origins from 2008. A film about the rich BANKERS abusing the poor WORKERS out of their TIME/MONEY until they are priced to DEATH! It is the least subtle jab at the banking crisis than the brilliant film 'Inside Job', and that was a documentary about the Banking Crisis. It couldn't be more obvious and it wasn't portrayed in a sensible, sublte way. It was as subtle as a meatcleaver to the face, in a nunnery, on a Dull, dreary sunday.
However, I suppose that this is an original idea. But it is a bit like Logans run. Actually, It's a lot like logans Run, but with a slightly silleir premise. And I think that that is a very good review right there. Logans Run is a classic film, and this is trying so hard to be it, with it's underlying subplots and contemporary messages about society. It pulls it off well but not as purely, subtly as the Cinema Behemoth.
All in all, a good film ,well worth a watch, but a word of warning. Don't use your brain at any time during the film. You end up Riffing, and it is so easy to Riff, as the many annoyed people at my Local Odeon will tell you.
Over and out.
Oh, and go watch 'Don't be afraid of the DArk', it starts with a woman has her teeth smashed out with a chisel. Family entertainment.
