In Time: Justin Timberlake Gets Serious
[There was a video here]
Here's a trailer for In Time, a thriller about a future world in which people, if they can afford it, never age past 25. So your mom could look like Olivia Wilde forever and you could look like Justin Timberlake.
Or Vincent Kartheiser or Alex Pettyfer or Cillian Murphy or Matthew Bomer or any of the other attractive men in this movie. Sounds like a fun world to live in! Other than the attractive men, this movie looks intriguing in a could-be-a-total-disaster kind of way. The film's writer and director Andrew Niccol has tread somewhat similar ground before to good effect in Gattaca, but that was 14 long years ago and the interim has seen him make S1m0ne and Lord of War. So who knows! The concept is fun, but even in this trailer the word "time" began to lose all meaning it was said so often. I worry that the whole conceit of the movie teeters a bit too precariously on the edge between smart and silly.
I'm also not too sure about this Justin Timberlake guy. Have you heard of him? He used to be a singer and now he's trying to be an actor, and while he's acquitted himself nicely on Saturday Night Live on occasion, this here is a serious, dark, heady thriller and I just don't know if his reedy voice and flat line delivery is really gonna cut it. I mean, can we just say it? As much as he's America's late-blooming boy next door crush, Justin Timberlake is not a good actor. He's not a bad one either, but most of my actor friends didn't make me pay $13 every time they took an acting class, so Justin Timberlake shouldn't either. I appreciate that he's trying and genuinely seems to be working at it! But why not hole himself up at Circle in the Square or the A.R.T. for a couple years and then come back to us when he's really made some progress? Girl, you need to do some Chekhov, maybe star in a black box Woyzeck, get some Ibsen up in you, and then I will pay monies to see you in the leading role in a movie. But now? I don't know. I just don't know.
That said, I will probably see this movie, yes. I like the cast, I like Mr. Niccol's visual flair, and I'm curious to find out how I too can never age past 25. (I'm currently only 19, of course, but I'll be 25 soon enough!!!)