In Time

In Time is a workmanlike dystopian haves vs. have-nots science fiction picture. 

Here’s the story: in a few hundred years, someone figures out how to halt the aging process at 25.  To stop overpopulation, at 25 a one-year counter starts ticking off on the person’s arm.  Once that counter goes to zero, the person drops dead.  As with any economic system, people separate into haves and have-nots.  Everyone seems more or less ok with this, until one man (Justin Timberlake) trips to the fact that the haves are rigging the system.

It’s a neat premise that follows in the grand tradition of science fiction as social commentary and popular entertainment.  Add that Timberlake is a likeable film actor and that both his love interest/accomplice (Amanda Seyfried) and antagonist (Cillian Murphy) know how to hit their marks, and you have a fine picture.

So, what’s the difference between “workmanlike” or “fine” and “good?”  Ambiguity.  Vision.  Creativity.  In Time feels like a low-budget third draft.  It’s all too simple and clear to be actually “good,” and the use of time as a metaphor for money stops being interesting after about ten minutes.  Toss in a future LA whose very best neighborhood appears to be the Wilshire District around 7:00 am on a Sunday and technology that’s only about $100,000 worth of production budget cooler than our own, and you wind up with “workmanlike” and “fine.”

And yet, workmanlike and fine are, well, fine.  I don’t recommend that you go out of your way to see In Time, but if dystopian haves vs. have-nots science fiction is your thing, well, have at it.

Warrior

The poster for Warrior tells you most of what you need to know about the movie.  Two guys who appear to know their way around a hypodermic needle are going to fight.  One of them’s probably the bad guy, and one of them’s probably the good guy.  There’s gonna be a training montage, and someone’s going to look to a woman in the audience for inspiration.

For the most part, you’d be right.  Nevertheless, Warrior steps enough outside that mold to keep itself interesting, and it delivers a fine montage, great fights, and enough of an emotional wallop to choke me up at the end.  See, the fighters are brothers.  With issues.  They bond.  I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.

Yes, yes, yes.  We’ve seen a number of the story elements a million times.  And really, how do you do anything new with a shot of supporters back home cheering at their television sets?  But hey, I liked these people all the same.  I cared about them and I cared who won the big fight, and why, and how.  Warrior is a perfectly respectable entry in the “fight movie” catalogue.