Film Review: IN TIME (2011)

Writer/Director: Andrew Niccol
Running time: 109 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 12

Genre: Sci-Fi/Action/Adventure
UK Release date: 1^st November 2011

Watched on Sky+ Tuesday 20^th November 2012.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

This is another film I have wanted to see for some time. I loved the ideas behind it and hoped it could deliver on the great promise it held. Sadly (for me at least) it only just made the mark but there were some great ideas and some interesting moments along the way (more of that later). The Writer/Director Andrew Niccol, who has worked on such films as; Gattaca, Lord of War and the rather excellent The Truman Show (amongst others), delivers here a ‘by the book’ action thriller with some elements of Robin Hood and Bonnie and Clyde thrown in. The interesting element is the fact that the currency everyone is trading in is the amount of time they have left to live. Here’s a very brief summary.

Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives in a poorer part of town with his mother, Rachel (Olivia Wilde). They find life hard, scraping enough time to last each day. A chance meeting with a rich man, Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer), who has a death wish leaves Will with over a hundred years to play with. His mother having ‘timed out’ he decides its time to get a little revenge on the rich who live in luxury in another zone of the city, New Greenwich. The police in the form of Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy) are interested in talking to Will about the death of Hamilton. He makes it to New Greenwich and there he makes a large amount of time playing poker with the exceedingly wealthy Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser). With the police closing in Will kidnaps Weis’s daughter, Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried) and heads back home. And this is where I’ll leave it.

On the performance front, I thought Cillian Murphy and Amanda Seyfried stood out with Justin Timberlake lacking the required screen presence to carry it off (IMO). I thought Michael William Freeman who had a small role as bad guy Nardin did a good job of playing a very believable loathsome thug. With virtually everyone on screen being around the same age (25), barring the occasional kid, I found this one quite odd to look at (even a bit ageist! – just a joke, honest). It’s pretty well made with some great ideas behind the plot and even some great dialogue thrown in here and there but at the end of the day it just failed to get over that mark. It’s not that it’s a bad film, the problem is, it’s just not the great film it deserved to be.

SteelMonster’s verdict: RECOMMENDED… just.

My score: 6.4/10

IMDb Score: 6.6/10 (based on 127,563 votes at the time of going to press).
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/

MetaScore: 53/100: (Based on 36 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Tomatometer’ Score: 36/100 (based on 154 reviews counted at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Audience’ Score: 51/100 ‘Liked It’ (based on 59,584 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/in_time/

If you’re crazy enough… You can find me on Facebook at:
http://facebook.com/andy.steel3

FAVOURITE QUOTES:
[first lines]
Will Salas: I don't have time. I don't have time to worry about how it happened. It is what it is. We're genetically engineered to stop aging at 25. The trouble is, we live only one more year, unless we can get more time. Time is now the currency. We earn it and spend it. The rich can live forever. And the rest of us? I just want to wake up with more time on my hand than hours in the day.

Henry Hamilton: How old are you? In real time?
Will Salas: 28.
Henry Hamilton: I'm 105.
Will Salas: Good for you. You won't see 106, you have too many more nights like tonight.
Henry Hamilton: You are right. But the day comes when you've had enough. Your mind can be spent, even if your body's not. We want to die. We need to.
Will Salas: That's your problem? You've been alive too long? You ever known anyone who's died?
Henry Hamilton: For a few to be immortal, many must die.
Will Salas: What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Henry Hamilton: You really don't know, do you? Everyone can't live forever. Where would we put them? Why do you think there are time zones? Why do you think taxes and prices go up the same day in the ghetto? The cost of living keeps rising to make sure people keep dying. How else could there be men with a million years while most live day to day? But the truth is... there's more than enough. No one has to die before their time. If you had as much time as I have on that clock, what would you do with it?
Will Salas: I'd stop watching it. I can tell you one thing. If I had all that time, I sure as hell wouldn't waste it.

Sylvia Weis: How does anyone live like this?
Will Salas: You don't generally sleep in.

Ulysse: You'd steal from your own father?
Sylvia Weis: Is it stealing if it's already stolen?

Will Salas: No one should be immortal if even one person has to die.

LINKS:
(Note: All were working at the time of going to press)
Official Facebook: In Time Movie Facebook Page
Official Twitter: http://twitter.com/InTimeMovie
Official Site: http://www.intimecasino.com/
Trailer:

Film Review: INCEPTION (2010)

Writer/Director: Christopher Nolan
Running time: 148 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 12A

UK Release date: 16th July 2010

Watched at the cinema Saturday 17th July 2010.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

If you can suspend you belief in reality for 148 minutes then this is the film for you, if you can’t then it may only confuse you. Fortunately I am of the former persuasion and was very intrigued to see Christopher Nolan’s latest effort, particularly given the reception it has initially received. And so, having avoided seeing anything much beyond the trailer I took my seat in the theatre and waited with much anticipation for it to start.

I will keep my summary very brief and try not to give away any spoilers, this is best seen without knowing too much about it. Cobb is a thief, using technology he can go into your dreams and steal your secrets. He can’t do it alone though, he needs a team around him for backup, to design the dreamscape, to chemically induce the dream and someone to wake them all up when the mission is completed. He finds that committing industrial espionage is a good way to make a living while he figures out a way to get back home to see his estrange kids. He cannot go and see them because he is implicated in the untimely death of their mother, Mal, who still haunts his dreams. When a powerful industrialist, Saito, comes to him with a proposal he is interested, particularly when the fee is to be his longed for reunion with his children. There’s just one snag, the job will entail inception, planting an idea in someone’s mind via their dreams, a very risky process. I’ll leave it there or I may say too much, but that’s a very general outline.

This is without doubt one of the best films I’ve seen… ever. Always engaging, entertaining, sad, dramatic, action-packed, enthralling, intriguing and above all, intelligent. It kept me gripped from start to finish, which is a long time to be gripped, believe me! Although it’s pure fiction, I found it easy to identify with the characters which is testament to both the writing and the performances of the entire cast. So, hats off to, Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur, Ellen Page as Ariadne, Tom Hardy as Eames, Ken Watanabe as Saito, Dileep Rao as Yusef, Marion Cotillard as Mal and Cillian Murphy as Robert Fischer, Jr. Also honourable mentions go to Tom Berenger as Browning, Pete Postlethwaite as Maurice Fischer and Michael Caine as Miles.

The effects were amazing, not an awful lot of CGI used, but some excellent wire work, physical effects and some use of miniatures was really effective. The scene (it’s in the trailer) where gravity is lost in the building is quite breathtaking. A word of warning though, be sure you won’t need a toilet break, if you do, you could find yourself lost in this most excellent and labyrinthine plot. I cannot praise everyone who worked on this one enough, in particular Christopher Nolan, a brilliant film and very very highly RECOMMENDED!!.

My score: 9.7/10

LINKS:
IMDb Site: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/
Official Site: http://inceptionmovie.warnerbros.com/
Trailer: http://uk.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK/video/imdb/vi4219471385/