"Fly Like an Eagle"

Watched the new Justin Timberlake/Cillian Murphy/Amanda Seyfried movie In Time last night. It has a really neat premise that I don't think has been done before. It also contains aspects (good aspects) of Bonnie & Clyde and Les Misérables. It tells the class warfare story well, and the actors in it were all great. That being said, it wasn't as good as the sum of its parts. Partially for me this was due to a number of things "pulling me out" of the experience.

Right at the beginning, the voice over before the movie really begins was a giant hand wave. "We don't really know how to explain the science part of our sci-fi premise, so just go along with us here." Setting up the whole no one ages after 25 and time is money thing is important, but don't try to tell me that there is a scientific explanation, but we're just not going to tell you, because our narrator doesn't know. Just set up and move on. Everyone stops aging at 25 gives us the amusing visual of Olivia Wilde as Justin's Mom. I thought that would be a distraction, and at first it was, but she turns in a hell of a performance.

For a movie that should have been stocked with people in their mid 20s, one of the things that really pulled me out of the experience was how old some of the actors looked. Cillian Murphy was great in his role as a Time Keeper, but he's 35 and looked it. At first it worked, he's a senior cop, so having some gravitas helps, but that's not the premise that they set up. no one is supposed to age outwardly, hard life or not. The cars are all classic sports cars and muscle cars from the 20th century, which is cool, we've made cool cars over the years, but they all 'sound future-y'. Again, its distracting to hear the Star-Trek door hiss sound every time someone opens a car door in this movie.

Andrew Niccol always gives us a good premise, but sometimes his execution is better than others. It's fairly heavy handed against the rich, but I think this one is worth checking out if you've got the chance.