Time is power, thought is lost

The old saying "time is money" has never rung as true as it does in "In Time."

This sci-fi action-adventure from "Gattaca" director Andrew Niccol tries to use the idea of time as currency to limited success.

The basic premise of the movie is that instead of money, people spend and earn the time they have left to live.  

Everyone ages normally until they are 25, and at that point, they are given a year to spend and invest.  

Will, played by Justin Timberlake, is a factory worker who lives in the ghetto of Dayton, and is almost out of time after only being alive for 28 years.  

At the beginning of the movie, he has roughly a day left and it seems to be the end for him until he runs into a stranger in a bar who has over one hundred years.  

Local criminals hear about this individual and attempt to capture him to steal his time. Will saves this mysterious stranger and, in gratitude, the man donates the rest of his time to Will.

He takes the man's time and decides to go to the rich section of town to take down the entire time system. As expected, things get complicated when law enforcement, criminals and a love interest get involved.

The movie boils down to a social commentary about the current socioeconomic status of the United States.  

After receiving a century of free time, Will gives a decade to his friend. If this movie were defending the poor, then his friend might have invested it or escaped the ghetto. Instead, his friend uses his new wealth to drink himself to death, wasting the many years left on his clock.

This goes against everything the movie stands for and insinuates the poor cannot handle money. There is no real reason for the interaction.

One aspect that should have been explored was how everyone in the world looks 25. This concept  is addressed once during an interaction where Will is not sure if Sylvia, played by Amanda Seyfried, is someone's wife or daughter.

The typical lines of what people look like are blurred so that someone who is 105 years old looks the same as someone who is 25. Such an age gap in a relationship is also acceptable in their society.

There is a lot of solid talent in this movie, such as Timberlake, Seyfried, Cillian Murphy and Vincent Kartheiser. All of these people have shown incredible skill in the past, but for some reason it does not show in this movie.

The pacing is unrefined and the actors seem to be calling it in.

The best acting comes from Kartheiser, but his acting might just be layover from "Mad Men" where he plays a similar character.

In the end, the movie is not terrible, but it really lacks proper direction and acting.

I feel that if the movie spent less time being an action-adventure, chase movie and spent more time exploring the repercussions of time being used as currency, it could have been more interesting.

There is nothing inherently terrible about "In Time," but it felt incomplete because there were so many metaphors that could have been explored and it did not pursue any of them.