Only in a place as age-averse as Hollywood would a studio greenlight a film in which -Olivia Wilde plays Justin Timberlake’s mother. Oedipal issues aside, it just makes you giggle.
As lame as its tone-deaf title, “In Time” is the latest dystopian vision from New Zealand-born writer/director Andrew Niccol (“Gattaca,” “S1m0ne,” “Lord of War”), a filmmaker whose mother apparently hit him over the head with a copy of George Orwell’s “1984” when he was an infant.
In his latest, Niccol envisions a future Los Angeles in which humans stop aging at 25 (as if), at which point a yellow-green digital readout inexplicably appears on their forearms with a year on the clock. At the end of that period, unless they have added to their spans by work, theft or gift, humans “time-out” (i.e., die). These humans live in class-based “time zones,” can add to or subtract from their time, which is also the currency in this bizarro future world, and can exchange time simply by holding hands.
In opening scenes, Will Salas (Timberlake), the film’s ghetto-dwelling protagonist, loses his mother (Wilde) when he runs to grab her hand and fails to reach her before her clock runs out.
When a stranger named Henry Hamilton — who looks like a male model but is much older than 100 — dies after giving factory worker Will a gift of a century, Timekeeper Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy) and his black-leather-clad, futuristic Dodge Challenger-driving fellow cops give Will chase.
After Will crosses time zones and reaches a wildly posh and decadent party in New Greenwich (get it?) given by time magnate Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser of “Mad Men”), he teams up with Weis’ beautiful, rebellious, haute-couture-clad daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried in a Louise Brooks wig).
Fleeing from the Timekeepers, often on foot, Will and Sylvia become a kind of Bonnie and Clyde of Niccol’s chrono-centric future world in spite of their complete lack of chemistry. Is “In Time” risible and tedious, or is it the perfect fable for the Occupy Wall Street generation?
I realize everyone in “In Time” is biologically 25 years of age, but that doesn’t explain why most of the women dress like they’ve fallen out of the pages of Magnum or why time-rich people drive variations of 1960s Lincoln Continentals. In addition to the Timekeepers, Will is being chased by another group, called Minute Men, argh, and led by twitchy, grimacing, pretty-boy Fortis (an unconvincing Alex Pettyfer of “I Am Number Four”). These young men resemble the Abercrombie & Fitch gang.
Have you noticed that most of the characters are named after watch brands? Urp.
Hugo Award-winning science-fiction author Harlan Ellison is reportedly suing the filmmakers because he believes “In Time” borrows too heavily from his classic 1965 short story “ ‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman,” which if nothing else has a much catchier title. Don’t bother, Harlan.
Niccol, who also wrote “The Truman Show” screenplay, is the one whose time is up.
(“In Time” contains profanity, sex-ually suggestive dialogue and so much running you wonder if the actors were paid by the foot.)
