Full of Puns and Irony -- In Time movie review

IN THE FUTURE, EVERY SECOND COUNTS

Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried and Cillian Murphy
Star in The Pulse-Pounding Sci-Fi Thriller
Debuting on Blu-ray and DVD January 31

Let the countdown begin.  Leave the existing world behind and enter into a futuristic world where the aging gene is switched off after 25 and time is money, literally, that many can’t afford in the cutting-edge thriller IN TIME, arriving on Blu-ray and DVD January 31 from  Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.  Featuring an all-star cast including  Justin Timberlake (The Social Network), Amanda Seyfried (Mamma Mia!) and Cillian Murphy (Inception), the film puts an innovative spin on class warfare and explores the corruptness that lies within.

In the future, time has become the ultimate currency and genetic alteration has allowed people to stop aging at 25 years old.  Upon reaching 25, the countdown begins and in order to stay alive everyone must work to buy themselves more time or die within a year.  The rich can buy their way out of the situation, while the rest are left to negotiate for immortality.  When a struggling young man, Will Salas  (Timberlake), comes in contact with a “millionaire,” he is gifted more time than he can imagine.  Falseley accused of murder, Will is a fugitive on the run and becomes determined to bring down the entire system by any means possible.

Showcasing stunning visual effects and gravity defying stunts, the IN TIME Blu-ray is loaded with bonus materials including an exclusive featurette “THE MINUTES” to discover the origins of the film’s time based society, deleted and extended scenes, and access to the enhanced IN TIME THE GAME APP.  DVD special features include deleted and extended scenes.  IN TIME will be available on Blu-ray for an average retail price of  $24.99 and on DVD for $19.99, respectively.  Prebook is January 4.

IN TIME Blu-ray + Digital Copy (Catalog #22378296)

·         “THE MINUTES” featurette

·         Deleted/Extended Scenes

·         Access to IN TIME THE GAME APP

IN TIME DVD (Catalog #2278289)

• Deleted/Extended Scenes

OUR OPINION

I loved this movie! I love Amanda Seyfried and am a huge fan of hers. She is a wonderful, gorgeous actress and she is very talented too!  I so wanted to see this in theaters, because I feel like it would have been so much better, but I am glad I got to watch it with Noah too. (He was deployed when it was out in theaters) I enjoyed this movie even more than I thought I would. Since I watched it, I have been telling everyone how good it was, and recommending that they see it too. It was pulse pounding, edge-of-your-seat type of movie, for sure! Without spoiling it too much for you, I can  honestly say that I "get" the  similarities of how life is. We are all born marked with how much time we have, but in this movie they see it and are aware of EXACTLY how much time. Also- it is true that people with money (time) do get to live longer. Because  of the expensive medical treatments and such, poor people do not live as long. So I totally get that. In this movie, they have to work for time to spend in order to live. They are given time to work, yet they have to spend it for food and bills. We "spend" a lot of our "time" working so we can "live". That is what I mean by I get it. I guess I am having a hard time  putting into words the ironic puns of the movie without really spilling the beans on the ending. This movie, in my humble opinion, should be an award winner.. The story-line doesn't disappoint and it definitely has no holes in the plot, or  has any boring moments.   It's funny because Rotten Tomatoes trashed this movie, and I really don't see why.

I know several other sites too have said they didn't like it! Which is crazy, because- it was really good. The kind of movie that makes you sit back and think and ponder for a long while. 

Keep reading but it's a spoiler alert if you do!

As with The Truman Show and S1m0ne, writer/director Andrew Niccol's "In Time" stars Justin Timberlake proves that he's as equally capable at carrying an action adventure as he was at a broad comedy.

"In Time" is set in two fictional towns, not unlike any big city known to us; called Dayton and New Greenwich where humans stop aging at 25 with only an additional one year on their internal clocks, displayed as a sub-dermal, glowing digital countdown on their forearms. Everyone in the film is young and noone ages, but they are all running out of time, similar to we are. People can only die by acts of violence, random or otherwise -- disease is not mentioned.

But more time can be earned, by working, just like our lives, or stolen. So those who are wealthy live, while those who are poor die. Not unlike our world.

As a result, the poor take risks because they have nothing to lose, while the rich play it very safe, some refusing to take even minuscule physical risks like swimming in the ocean.

The poor, those short on time, live in Dayton and if they have jobs at all, they live literally day-to-day (pardon the pun), hoping that they can get enough work to purchase another day on their clocks.  Many work in a factory that makes time storage devices that can be used to move time around from place to place or person to person, like a wallet with money in it. They wake up every day thinking it will be their last. They are literally slaves to time, forced to either beg, steal or work at sub-standard wages simply in order to live.

There are "timed out" bodies on the street.

Justin Timberlake plays Will Salas, a factory worker who suddenly finds himself with over a century (100 years) of time.

In a local bar, Salas rescues Henry Hamilton, a suspiciously well-dressed stranger from a group of time thieves, or really a rough gang called Minute Men, who "clean the clocks" of their victims. Another silly pun. But get this; the rescued man was trying to die. He's 105 and has simply grown tired of living.

The towns are all corndoned off into "Zones" that they cannot pass without a lot of Time, meaning they would have to have years on their clocks to get out of the slums, but noone does, of course, so they are prisoners there with the crime. Will wants to take his mother to New Greenwich, to celebrate her 50th birthday! After Henry gives him all his "time" he goes to New Greenwich & attracts the attention of one of the richest men in the world. When he meets his daughter, Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried). Seyfried, the mans daughter is a rich girl with a rebellious streak. 

"In Time" is rated PG-13. There's a fair amount of gun violence, death, the occasional four-letter word (and their various variants) an underwater bare bottom, and some clothed sexual suggestions.

The “time,” which is stored in little stamp-like cassettes and in one’s body, tracked by glowing digital readers on the forearm. This brings up a great conspiracy of the rich that eliminates the poor. “Many must die so that a few can live forever,” is a saying in the movie.

People can do a “time share” by touching wrists together and exchanging the digital life. This is what makes it so easy to steal time from another person, as you can take years in seconds, or just seconds.  I never realized there could be so many time-puns. Salas in the beginning of the movie is three years past twenty-five, the year in which everyone’s internal clock starts ticking down, meaning he needs to find time to stay alive each day. With his newfound century’s worth of time, Salas can not only live for another 100 years, but he can use his years to cross class barriers into New Greenwich, with all the rich people. (Where he meets Sylvia)

He at first kidnaps her (Sylvia) when the Timekeepers realize he has so much time, and start chasing him, he tries to disrupt the time market by spreading millions of years around the poor ghetto “time zones.”

How about some more Tie puns? Like- “Hey, can I get a minute?” or, “I haven’t the time for this.” or, "In the year 2161, times have changed." or, "Time is money." or, "Time is of the essence." or, “Time is Gold” 

 Because of the economic imbalance, the poor can run out of time simply by getting held up on the way to work, and the rich can live as long as they want.  It truly brings to mind the fact that most of us essentially sell our time to different companies/corporations for as little as minimum wage. If you work an eight-hour day, then that’s a good third of your day carved out and handed to some guy so that he can produce cardboard boxes or something. At the same time, some are born with a silver spoon in their mouths and have the luxury of, well, luxury. They’ve nothing to worry about, and don’t have the ever-looming clouds of financial insecurity floating above their heads.

The police are aka, the TIME KEEPERS.

Like currency in the real world, time is earned through working, stealing, or in the case of the wealthy, inheritance. The “Time Zones” confine the poor to a ghetto existence where “clock-punched” citizens lie dead in the streets, while the wealthy live on virtually immortal – although tepid and bored in their insulated existence. Then, get this, you can't tell who is old and young, see, Olivia Wilde, Will's mother, looks the sdame age or younger as him although she is "50" because they stop aging at 25. Could make things confusing for sure. Definitely makes you think. Will''s passion for life bothers him that the poor live day to day and that the rich could help and they don't. Not unlike our own life.

However, the time system that keeps the world going is one that does not favor anomalies. When Will suddenly changes fortunes, it attracts the attention of the “Time Keepers” (cops) – in particular half-century veteran Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy), who recognizes in Will the same socialistic streak he saw in Will’s father many decades ago. When the Keepers come to forcibly repo Will’s time, Will is forced to flee with Sylvia as a hostage and the chase ensues.

End scenario? Timberlake and Seyfried play Robin Hood in 'In Time'

The idea of time as currency has huge metaphorical and thematic potential, and in the first act it seems as though the film will utilize this potential by exploring issues like what it is to “live” vs. “exist,” and how the investment of time as a life or death matter realigns one’s perceptions of what’s worthwhile, and how to live life. This movie has a lot of momentum the whole time, and does not disappoint.

What would you do if you can live forever?

 The more posh and expensive the "Zone" you’re going to, the more expensive it will be to pass through the barriers. Man’s quest for immortality is also one of the main themes here. Their bodies don’t expire naturally, as long as there’s time, they can go on and on. 

The conflict in the film is man’s greed and his nature to get ahead of everyone else. The characters of Will and Slyvia have a strong sense of righteousness and of what’s fair.  These two sought to make a difference which I think became a very admirable cause until the very end.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC (TCFHE) is a recognized global industry leader and a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, a News Corporation company. Representing 75 years of innovative and award-winning filmmaking from Twentieth Century Fox, TCFHE is the worldwide marketing, sales and distribution company for all Fox film and television programming, acquisitions and original productions on DVD, Blu-ray Disc Digital Copy, Video On Demand and Digital Download. The company also releases all products globally for MGM Home Entertainment. Each year TCFHE introduces hundreds of new and newly enhanced products, which it services to retail outlets from mass merchants and warehouse clubs to specialty stores and e-commerce throughout the world.

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IN TIME Blu-ray                (Catalog #2237896)

Street Date:                        January 31, 2012
Prebook Date:                   January 4, 2012
Screen Format:                 16:9 (2.35:1)
Audio:                                   English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Spanish & French 5.1 Dolby Digital
Subtitles:                             English, Spanish & French
U.S. Rating:                         PG-13
Total Run Time:                 109 minutes
Closed Captioned:           Yes

IN TIME DVD                      (Catalog #2278289)

Street Date:                        January 31, 2012
Prebook Date:                   January 4, 2012
Screen Format:                 16:9 (1.85:1)
Audio:                                   English 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 2.0 Dolby Surround, French 2.0 Dolby Surround
Subtitles:                             English, Spanish & French
U.S. Rating:                        PG-13
Total Run Time:                109 minutes
Closed Captioned:           Yes

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