WARNING: Do not continue reading unless you want to be spoiled on key plot points of the movie, In Time.

(Worked on this entry well into the night last night, but eventually I had to throw in the towel because I needed to attempt to get at least some rest before getting up at 6am this morning for work.)

Before I get deeper into this entry, I just want to say, normally I’m pretty wary of movies that feature singer-turned-actors.  For Justin Timberlake I had to make an exception though, and it wasn’t because I found him attractive.  To be honest, he doesn’t look very attractive to me, but maybe it’s because I prefer guys that are slightly more built and not just clean-cut looking, like George Eads, who plays the character Nick Stokes from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

I stumbled across trailers for In Time by mistake–well, I guess only partially by mistake.  It’s part of my routine every Saturday or Sunday night to go to Fandango.com and sift through information on movies that will release that coming Friday, just to see if there’s anything good that’s not in limited release, so that I will be able to watch it in theaters.  (The ones worth watching, anyway, the rest I just wait for DVD or stream.)

Anyhow, I will admit I found the premise of In Time‘s trailer to be interesting, this whole notion of being stuck at the age of 25 physically, but to continue running out of time to live.  People in this world keep track of how much time they have left based on the countdown clock they each have tattooed on their person that will keep running until it hits zero.  Time can also be given away, sold, stolen, etc.  It is the people’s currency in this world.  For those of you who have watched the trailer, this should not be news to you, as this is all information given there.

Had I just judged the trailer at a superficial level though (looks and actor chemistry), I probably would have just passed this movie by.  The acting in the trailer is a little stiff and my instincts told me the movie itself could turn out to be incredibly dry; when I have that kind of warning feeling in my gut, I usually don’t give the film a second thought.  However, I happen to be a huge sucker for sci-fi, which is what the movie appears to serve, based on the trailer, so of course I had to give it a try.

The movie starts off interestingly enough; the opening credits remind me of the Matrix trilogy, and the opening theme reminded me of Steven Spielberg’s A.I. for some reason.  We hear Justin Timberlake’s voice only at first, narrating, explaining that he doesn’t have the time to explain everything that has happened.  He also sheds some light on the whole aging thing; in the world his character lives in, people stop aging at 25 and are given only a year left to live after before their “time runs out.”  The exception to this being if the person is rich, then they can “buy” as much time as they want/need.  (By the way, just as an aside, I also realize everything that happens in this movie, or the entire movie itself, can just be seen as a really bad pun.)

The narration finishes and we are then shown a scene where Justin’s character, Will Salas, wakes up at home and wishes his mother Rachel Salas, played by Olivia Wilde (which totally caught me off-guard at the strangeness of the concept), a happy 25th birthday for the fiftieth time.  We then learn that his mother only has a little under 3 days left on her clock.  She tells Will she’s going to be gone for a couple of days to do some work so that she can pay off what bills they have and instructs him to meet her right after because she won’t have long left to live.  Will tells his mother that he understands and then takes off to his job at a factory.

At the factory, he meets up with Johnny Galecki, who plays a character named Borel, and buys them both some coffee.  (I found it nice to see Galecki in a role outside of Big Bang Theory, though I love him there as well; it’s nice to see actors branch out a little.)  They later see someone dead in broad daylight, who has simply run out of time.  This doesn’t appear to be too out of the ordinary though, as both men separate ways and get to work.

When they punch out, they use their arms like time cards, and Will is shortchanged some time.  According to the time keeper there, it’s both because he didn’t meet his quota and the fact that they are expected to output more than they used to.

After work, Will heads to a club where he meets up with people who seem like they might have been childhood buddies or something.  They ask if Will wants to gamble and he says no, he doesn’t have the time to spare anymore.  His one friend expresses his relief, stating that he started winning after Will stopped playing.  Will picks up an hour that the guy owes him and moves on.

He eventually finds Borel, who appears to be drunk as he tells Will that there is a guy at the bar who has been buying drinks for people all night, and that he has a century’s worth of time.  Will doesn’t do anything at first, but then he approaches the guy and starts warning him to leave and go to a safe place, because he may be killed for having as much time as he has.  The guy doesn’t seem very concerned, however.  Suddenly, there is the sound of a gunshot and men called the “Minutemen” appear at the night club, causing all the people to disperse.  Borel grabs Will and tells him they need to leave the premises.  Will follows him at first, but then decides to stay behind out of curiosity; Borel reluctantly leaves his friend behind.

Hidden in a hallway, Will watches the exchange between this mystery man and the Minutemen.  One of the Minutemen introduces himself as Fortis, and he challenges the mystery man to a fight for his time.  He mentions that he just turned 75 last week.  The mystery man says that he needs a moment and goes to throw up.  He is about to go back to Fortis for the fight when Will knocks out one of the guards attending the mystery man by surprise and leads him out of the building.  The guy protests at first, but eventually follows Will’s lead.  Will rushes the mystery man into a building where they hide out for a little while.  The guy offers Will a drink (too strong for Will to enjoy), and Will asks him why he was flashing around how much time he had so publicly.  The man doesn’t answer this question right away.  In the meantime, Will looks outside and announces that they will be safe until morning, and then they can try to find a way to get the man back where he came from.  The man notices that Will is running out of time and asks how old Will really is, the answer being 28.  The mystery man reveals that he is 105, and he is tired of living.

Will gets upset at this, and I assume he thinks the man doesn’t know how good he has it, and this launches them into a conversation that should be familiar to everyone who watched the trailer.  Up until this point of the movie, the writers have done a good job of doing predictable time puns, but this next conversation has a few nice lines that I think worked well for this film.

Mystery man: If you had as much time as I have, on that clock, what would you do with it?
Will: [Looks down at his clock which currently reads 0000:00:0:18:56:12 and counting, then looks back up at the man with a serious look on his face.]  I’d stop watching it.
Mystery man: [Appears contemplative.]
Will: I can tell you one thing; if I had all that time?  Sure as hell wouldn’t waste it.

Right after this conversation, Will says that they should call it a night, and the two men mutually promise not to steal time from one another while they are supposed to sleep.  The man then offers Will another drink, which Will accepts and seems to like better than the first time he tried it.

Early the next morning, Will is still asleep.  The mysterious man silently approaches him and transfers all but five minutes of his time to Will, then goes off to the bridge across from the building where they had been hiding to spend his last minutes before death.  (Written on one of the foggy windows reads the message, “Don’t waste my time.”)

Will wakes, sees the time, sees the message, and as soon as he sees the man on the bridge it dawns on him what is happening.  So he runs to the bridge, but it is already too late, as the mystery man has finally run out of time and his body falls into the river below.  Will sees the corpse floating down the river and leaves the scene quickly as soon as he notices a camera focusing in his direction.

He then immediately goes to Borel’s house and tells him the very, very short version of what happened.  (I’m not kidding you either, I was actually kind of impressed; JT was able to get his character to sum up the whole situation in just a few short sentences.)  He then asks Borel how long they have been friends, which Borel answers 10 years.  Will then grabs Borel’s wrist and transfers him ten years.  Borel asks him what Will is going to do now, and Will says he will go to a place where it will appear normal to have as much time as he has.  The place is New Grenich, where apparently the mystery man was from.

The scene then cuts to Will’s mom (I love Olivia Wilde’s acting, by the way) paying off her loan payment, leaving her with about an hour and a half left.  She boards a bus only to find out that the bus fare has been raised to two hours; the bus driver refuses to pay the difference and no one on the bus is willing to help her with any time.  It’s a two hour walk back to the place where she is supposed to meet her son, and Will’s mother opts to run to her destination.

Time quickly runs out.  The next time we see Will’s mother’s clock, she only has 21 minutes left.  Will is waiting at the bus station for his mother with flowers, only to see that his mother is not on board.  Realizing that something has gone terribly wrong, Will quickly runs in the direction that his mother should be in.  Meanwhile, his mother is desperately trying to find someone that will spare her some time, but to no avail.  She now only has about nine minutes left and counting.

Eventually Will and his mother start getting closer, and there are only a few seconds left to spare.  They run as fast as they can towards each other, but it isn’t enough; his mother’s clock runs out before he can grab her wrist to replenish the time.  (On a slightly irrelevant note, JT is terrible at crying, haha.)

The next morning, the Minutemen (now with Cillian Murphy, who plays a Timekeeper by the name of Raymond Leon) discover the corpse of the mystery man with all his time run out.  The men decide to investigate and Raymond notices the security camera by the bridge.

In the meantime, Will takes a ride in a cab that takes him to New Grenich.  As he passes each time zone (which works a lot like a toll), he gives up an X number of months.  By the end of the series of zones, he has lost a year.  The cabbie asks him why he’s come to New Grenich, and Will states that he’s there to take the citizens of New Grenich for everything they’ve got; he also mutters under his breath implications of revenge.

Will runs at first, until he seems to realize that he probably doesn’t have to while in New Grenich.  He catches the attention of Amanda Seyfried’s character, Sylvia Weis, and they share a momentary glance before he enters a hotel building.  Inside the hotel, Will purchases a suite after learning that a standard room costs two months.  He isn’t safe; Raymond and the other Timekeepers are keeping Will under close surveillance as they try to figure out whether or not Will has the mystery man’s entire century.

Will goes to bed, and the next morning he wakes up and checks his time–which I thought was amusing because earlier in his conversation with the mystery man he said that he’d never check his clock again, but I guess he hadn’t factored in the complications that could come with having so much time.  At this point, his clock reads 0105:01:2:01:40:32.  (If I had to guess, I think that if you wanted to read these clocks, they’re probably read something like years:months:days:hours:minutes:seconds, but I could be wrong.)

The next scene is at a pricey restaurant; Will’s meal is worth 8 1/2 weeks.  He gives the waitress a week as a tip.  The waitress says Will must not be from the area because he does everything “too fast.”  I’m not sure if this was supposed to be a warning or not.  Meanwhile, Sylvia is watching him from her seat at the restaurant.

We then get cut to a brief scene with Raymond and the other Timekeepers again.  They have picked up on Will’s activity because it is out of the ordinary.  It is revealed here that while Raymond does not know who Will is, he apparently knew Will’s father.

Back to Will, he has now entered a high-end casino.  He pretty much gets forced to “donate” a year by the casino’s host with the reasoning that he is “not a member” of the casino.  He is then asked what game he would like to play, to which he answers, “poker.”  The host leads Will to the poker game area, and Will learns that the sky is the limit in terms of what he could win or lose.  The poker game starts pretty intensely; one of the men introduces himself to Will and pressures him into betting 50 years, which Will does so reluctantly.

Enter Sylvia, who takes her seat next to the guy taunting Will.  He eventually pressures Will into going “all in” by betting two centuries (which by the way, makes no sense to me, because didn’t Will only have one century to begin with?), leaving Will with roughly 27 seconds left and counting.

I actually held my breath during this scene because at first I thought the other guy wasn’t going to reveal his cards until after Will’s time completely ran out, but the man was fair and showed his hand.  Will did end up having the better hand and was able to raise his time to 13 figures, his time now reading 1100:00:0:00:00:01.

The next bit I really liked as well.  The man Will has just played mocks Will’s thought process as he eyes Sylvia.

Man: Confusing times.  Is she my mother, my sister, or my daughter?  You’re hoping she’s not my wife…things used to be simpler once; so I’m told.
Will: [Looks at Sylvia and then back to the man.]  Very beautiful.
Man: [Nods and seems to mildly approve of Will’s neutral response.]  Daughter…but she does look a lot like my wife.

In my opinion, this scene was worth watching.  In fact, if you haven’t gathered from my rambling so far, I do think that this movie is actually worth taking a look at.

Anyway, Will gets invited to a party by Sylvia, which he accepts.  The next scene is then Will at a car lot where he purchases a car for 59 years plus tax.  The salesman mentions that there is an additional charge for delivery, which confuses Will until the man implies that most people keep their vehicles on display.

Shortly after, Will drives to Sylvia’s family party, where he is greeted by Sylvia’s father, the man whom he played poker with.  The father introduces Will to his mother-in-law–who actually looks a lot more like Sylvia than her mother does–his wife, and once again his daughter, Sylvia.  Later on, while Will is poking at what looks like brownie mush at a table, Sylvia approaches him with her bodyguard in tow.  She strikes a conversation and sends away her bodyguard.  Eventually they get around to dancing; Sylvia’s protégé keep a close eye on her.

On the dance floor, Sylvia starts talking about the burden of being rich with time.  In her words, “the poor die, and the rich don’t live.”  The rich can live forever so long as they don’t do anything foolish.  This seems to inspire a mischievous little idea in Will, and he later lures her to the body of water behind her house and convinces Sylvia to go skinny dipping with him.  They have a moment where they almost kiss and there’s a bit of flirting here and there before they’re interrupted by Sylvia’s father.  The pair hide behind a rock at first, and then they mutually decide to return to the party.

Back at the party, Sylvia’s father approaches Will and asks if he’s seen Sylvia.  Will tells her father that she’s right behind him with her guards.  Sylvia’s father turns around and sees that this is the case (and he doesn’t seem to notice her damp, disheveled hair).  Apparently satisfied, he then asks Will if he’s up for that rematch game of poker.  Will takes him up on the offer, but before they can get to their game, Raymond and the Timekeepers show up and crash the party.  They take Will into a room and begin interrogating him about the amount of time he received.  Will admits that he received part of it from gambling and a portion of it from the man who committed suicide.  Raymond doesn’t buy Will’s story and still seems to think he somehow managed to steal the century away from the other man.  The Timekeepers take all but two hours of Will’s time away.

After that, there’s a bit of an insignificant scene where Sylvia seems a little disgusted to discover that Will is from the ghettos and marches away from her father.  Will takes that chance distraction and knocks out the two guards beside him.  He chases after Sylvia and takes her hostage at gunpoint, then runs away with her in a getaway vehicle.  Shortly after there is a chase scene where Will manages to escape from Raymond (and he performs a small fun stunt of driving backwards on the wrong side of the road in attempts to lose the Timekeeper–kids, don’t do try at home.)  In the end, he successfully manages to lose Raymond for the time being.

Will momentarily pulls off to a secluded part of road and asks for a time loan from Sylvia, who refuses, apparently still disgusted with the fact that Will isn’t originally from New Grenich.  After having a bit of an argument, Will drives on.

They reach the time zone where Will is originally from, and Will fails to see the booby trap on the ground until it’s too late; the tires blow out because of the spikes that were scattered on the ground, and the car crash lands by what appears to be the bridge the century man had died at.  The force of the impact has knocked both driver and passenger unconscious.

Re-enter the Minutemen.  I can’t recall if you learn this earlier or later in the movie, but at some point we are given the rather vague explanation the difference between Minutemen and Timekeepers.  Minutemen are basically freelance keepers of time and stay within their own jurisdiction; Timekeepers, of course, can regulate time anywhere.

Anyway, Fortis, the Minuteman bully from the beginning of the film is back.  He takes advantage of the fact that Will and Sylvia are unconscious and steals all but a half hour of Sylvia’s time.  (I imagine Fortis probably would have tapped her out if he had the opportunity, but the some sirens scare him and his men off.)

Almost too conveniently, Sylvia chooses that very moment to slowly wake from her unconscious state and she immediately notices the lack of time she has on her clock.  Will also slowly wakes up, checks to see if Sylvia is okay, and then he starts chuckling to himself.  Annoyed, Sylvia asks him what he thinks is so funny.  Will just replies by stating the obvious, that they’re not dead.  Sylvia is unamused and gets out of the car, countering that the both of them will probably not be alive for much longer either.  The pair set off again, but first Will lends Sylvia some time; he also doesn’t miss the opportunity to point out the irony of the situation either, since now the tables have turned and it is Sylvia that needs his help now.

The Timekeepers arrive on the scene a beat too late, but they are not easily deterred.  Meanwhile, Will and Sylvia are on the run.  Will makes a stop at Borel’s wife and it’s Borel’s wife that opens the door.  He is then informed that Borel is dead; he drank himself to death with nine years off of his clock.  (I’m not sure if the guy intended suicide or if he just got too excited with the amount of time he had received from Will; either way, his wife is understandably unhappy and not willing to continue associating with Will.)

Sylvia checks her clock while Will seems to be taking a moment to let the new information sink in, and she notices that she only has about two minutes left.  She starts freaking out and Will tells her, not so nicely, to be quiet while he thinks.  Upon seeing Sylvia’s expensive earrings, Will gets an idea and runs with her to a jewelry pawn shop.  The people who own the shop try to close the door on them at first, but then Sylvia takes off her earrings and slides it under the door, which is enough to convince the pawn shop owners to open up for them.  (I kind of wanted to smack my head here though because I feel like they could have gotten more than 48 hours for her earrings had she covered up her wrist so that the jeweler couldn’t see how much time they had left.)  Will takes the 48 hours and quickly goes into hiding with Sylvia as they wait for the Timekeeper car to pass by.  Will gives Sylvia a little more time and then the two are on the road again.

Will leads Sylvia to a nearby Weis time lending building and finds a pay phone nearby; he tells Sylvia for the number to reach her father so he can threaten him and get 1,000 years in time as ransom.  Raymond takes the call.  A couple of choice words are exchanged between them and then Will hangs up the phone.

Shortly after, Will takes Sylvia to his old home.  Sylvia learns a little bit more about Will, like what his parents were like.  Sylvia then asks Will how to “fight.”  Now this part I didn’t quite understand, even when a “fight” occurs between Will and Fortis a scene or two later.  The concept seems to be sort of like arm wrestling, but even with the “cheat” that Will teaches Sylvia, I’m not too sure the whole thing makes much sense.  If anyone can explain it to me, please feel free, as it would be nice to understand.  The pair then exchange stories about when they first turned 25 and experiencing their first year.  If you’re curious about those scenes, I would go and watch the movie because I don’t think they’re significant enough to detail here.

The next day, Will takes Sylvia back to the same phone booth and waits as she makes the call to her father.  I think Will fully intended to make a fair exchange; Sylvia’s person for 1,000 years from her father.  Not surprisingly, Raymond is on the scene with a gun, ready to shoot will.  He unfortunately is unable to do so because Sylvia shoots him first–she only wounds him though and doesn’t actually kill him.  She surprises her father because he hears her saving Will through the phone.  Apparently their night together has given him a change of heart.

Before the two take off in Raymond’s car, Will gives Raymond a couple of hours when he discovers that Timekeepers don’t get allotted much time either.  Will’s pity is wasted though–his kind gesture doesn’t earn him any favors with Sylvia’s father or the Timekeepers.  I think this part of the story was just to demonstrate Will’s strong moral character, if anything; that no matter who the person is, everyone deserves a fighting chance in Will’s mind.  Knowing that staying in Raymond’s car will probably get them caught faster, Will steals a cabbie’s car and also takes some time from the wealthy passenger in the car.

The next few scenes are kind of filler at this point; Raymond warns Sylvia’s father against helping his daughter and Will, Will and Sylvia make out after watching a news broadcast about them from inside the stolen cabbie’s car, and Will teaches Sylvia how to properly shoot a gun.  After the shooting lesson, Sylvia asks Will if he really intends to give all the time away that he manages to steal.  Will says that he can’t watch the people around him die; Sylvia contrasts his statement by saying she doesn’t watch people die, she just closes her eyes.  To me, that tells me a lot about how each of them view the world that they live in.  Anyway, at some point during this conversation, Sylvia seems to get an idea.

That idea is to rob one of the banks her father owns.  The pair then launch into a bit of a Robin Hood quest and steal all the time they can so that they can give it away to people.  One of the people they leave it for is Borel’s wife, who finds it in a basket outside her home.  I know it sounds ridiculous to say this because it’s a sci-fi movie, but I thought that scene was a little touching.

While the duo are busy giving away time, Raymond is doing everything possible to stop them.  By giving away time to just about everyone in the ghetto, Will and Sylvia are upsetting the economic balance in the world.  (Subliminal message of pro-communism, anyone?)

There’s a few more unimportant scenes that follow, like the lame attempt at character development in a scene between Sylvia’s father and his wife; his wife apparently seems to support Sylvia’s decision to go rogue.  Anyway, we soon see that Will and Sylvia are at some hotel–or maybe it’s his house, I’m not sure, my memory is a bit hazy–where the pair are playing strip poker.  They aren’t given much time to fool around though, because soon the Timekeepers are on their tail.  Raymond chases after them, but Will and Sylvia manage to catch a bus ride out of there.

A couple more insignificant scenes, and then there’s a small side plot (I suppose you could call it) where Fortis is trying to hunt down who is handing out all this free time.  He interrogates several weak civilians–he taps out the time of one before a civilian speaks up.  Fortis allows the man to join him with the promise that he will receive part of the 10-year reward that is now the bounty for Will and Sylvia’s capture.

The man leads Fortis to the hotel where the pair are in hiding; he doesn’t appear to be with the team that Fortis brings in to capture Will and Sylvia, however, so I assume he was killed at some point before they made their entrance.  In the hotel room, Fortis challenges Will to one of those arm-wrestling time fights mentioned earlier, and Will wins with that trick he taught Sylvia before.  (I still don’t understand why the method works though.)  During the match, Will kills the bodyguard Minutemen and taps out all of Fortis’ time, then he and Sylvia are on the run yet again.

There’s a brief scene where Raymond and one of the other Timekeepers have a curt conversation; it’s kind of hard to tell, but I think at this point the other Timekeeper character (who has been the only other Timekeeper to get a fair amount of screentime) seems to be having a change of heart about Will and Sylvia.  Raymond, on the other hand, still seems firm about capturing the pair, dead or alive.

Meanwhile, Will and Sylvia are now on a rooftop.  Will is starting to lose hope because he is realizing that what they have done together still isn’t enough to upset the balance to a significant enough tipping point.  Sylvia asks him what it would take then, to get to that point, to which Will replies probably a million years.  This inspires Sylvia to suggest that they turn themselves in.

The thieving duo infiltrate her father’s headquarters and steal his first million from a safe.  I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen a similar scene before in some other movie–anyone know where it might have been from?  Rich man/woman keeps his/her first million in a special safe, all the other millions of dollars in their possession don’t carry the same sentimental value.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a scene from some older movie.

Moving on though, the chase is back on.  Raymond is once again on Will and Sylvia’s tail.  He orders his team to shoot them on sight, which is apparently against New Grenich policy; however, Raymond decides that losing a million years over the border is worse than breaking protocol.  He chases them all the way back to Will’s home zone, where Will has successfully handed over the million year capsule to one of his friends for distributing.

The streets soon become chaotic as people realize that the time lending station is now back open for business; Will and Sylvia take advantage of the distraction and make a run for it–Raymond is not far behind them.  Will and Sylvia run on foot, trying to reach the next town over in order to replenish their time.  Raymond chases after them in a vehicle and soon catches up to them.  (Just a quick aside, Justin Timberlake looks hilarious when he runs in this scene.  I couldn’t stop laughing at how goofy he looks.)

Raymond approaches the pair head-on, gun raised.  He and Will have a brief conversation where it is implied that Raymond is actually originally from the ghettos (and later on there’s a similar implication that the other Timekeeper we see a lot of is also from the same place).  My guess is that’s how the “rich” lure people to become Timekeepers, by promising to keep them out of the ghettos and help them to have a longer lifespan.  Anyway, the pair don’t have to worry about Raymond for long; the Timekeeper was so busy trying to kill them, he didn’t realize that he only had a few seconds left on his own clock–he realizes two late that he only has four seconds left and dies once he runs out of time.

Will and Sylvia have a brief panicky moment as Will realizes that they only have enough time between them for one of them to survive.  Sylvia refuses to take Will’s time.  (I couldn’t help but think here that it made sense Sylvia didn’t want to be left alone; in a world like theirs, having a lot of time seems kind of pointless without someone to spend it with–and oh goodness, look at that, this movie’s gotten me using cheesy one-liner puns about time, haha.)

They randomly make out–though I suppose it sort of makes sense since it seems they’ve silently mutually agreed on dying together, but then the kiss seems to give Will one of those random Dr. House light bulb moments (those that watch the show probably know what I mean) and realizes that there should be time they can use in the car Raymond was in.  By the way, I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but cars in this world apparently can hold time in storage.

I like the next scene, corny as it may come off to some.  I appreciate it when a later scene in a movie is able to subtly parallel an earlier one, when the cliche isn’t entirely expected.

Will is faster than Sylvia, so he makes it to the car first and replenishes his time.  He immediately turns back around and runs as fast as he can back to Sylvia, who jumps into his arms much like his mother did in one of the earliest scenes in this movie.  I couldn’t help but smile a little with Will upon seeing him pull back from Sylvia and realizing that she is still alive; of course I am filling in the character’s thoughts with my own overactive imagination, but I would imagine his character probably feels that he has sort of atoned for not having been able to save his mother by saving Sylvia.

The pair now both have a day’s worth in time.  They then make out, and it seems like happily ever after is just on the horizon.  The next few scenes are just ending filler mostly; Sylvia’s dad makes no moves to continue to correct the chaos of his daughter and Will’s massive time distribution, and there’s a mock news telecast featuring footage of people from the ghettos and crossing the time borders into New Grenich.  They don’t show this in the film, but I think the ending is probably only a temporary happy ending; I would imagine eventually the lines between classes will blur, and once again there will be a clear and distinct line between the lower, middle, and upper classes.  Perhaps I am being too cynical, but I don’t think humans are capable of living in a state of 100% equality with one another.

The story officially wraps up with the other main Timekeeper implying a decision to give up his timekeeping profession and returning to the ghettos where he originally came from, and Will and Sylvia watching a telecast about them still being at large from in their car.  The final scene is of them in the process of robbing yet another time bank.  (They don’t say it, but I assume these guys are just going to keep playing their own version of Robin Hood/time police for as long as they are able to.)

I didn’t do too much research on this movie beforehand, but upon seeing this last scene I immediately thought these two characters, Sylvia and Will, are very much like a sci-fi version of Bonnie and Clyde.  Not sure if it was intentional, but there definitely seems to be a bit of a parallel here.

Now for the my usual rating portion of the entry.

Originality: ***
Picture: ***
Sound: ****
Story: ***
Casting: N/A – I don’t really score casting for voice actors.
Re-watch Factor: ***
Overall: ***

FINAL VERDICT: B-

Slightly above average, and definitely better than what I initially expected based on the trailer and some reviews that I had read prior to watching.  Rotten Tomatoes gave this movie a 36%; yet another example of how the general public and I don’t seem to agree when it comes to movies.  Not to mention, there were several reviews I read prior to watching this film that didn’t give this movie a very flattering review, also mentioning that there is nothing but a ridiculous amount of senseless chase scenes at the end of the movie in addition to the extreme lack of character development.  While I will give those critics the point about the lack of character development, I don’t think all the chase scenes at the end of the movie were senseless.  (If anything, I thought the latter half of the movie Drive, starring Ryan Gosling, was more in the direction of senseless, but that’s potentially another conversation for some other day.)  The constant running done by the characters Will and Sylvia made perfect sense to me in my mind, given their circumstances.  I’m not going to argue about plot holes and lack of back story though, because this movie definitely had those too.

Anyway, while I didn’t think this movie was perfect by any means (and as a huge fan of the sci-fi genre, I have exceptionally high standards for sci-fi movies), I also didn’t think it was flat out terrible either.  This movie was very Adjustment Bureau, so if you liked that film you might like this one, and vice versa.  I also think In Time isn’t very DVD-worthy, but I think it is definitely worth re-watching at some point.  By the way, I can’t really pinpoint why I don’t find it appealing enough to own on DVD; it just seems to be missing some element.  I felt the same way about Real Steel.  These are both movies I might consider purchasing if I really had the extra money to spare, and only then.

I was going to write another entry or two, but looks like I’ve run out of time.  (Hahaha, bad pun, I know, sorry.  Appropriate for this situation though, I think.  I’m not sure I’ll have time to write again before Friday, but we’ll see–there’s still some stuff I feel that I definitely want to write about.)

Until next time!