Marter:
Gee, MovieBob liked a movie that has Amanda Seyfried in it. This isn't supposed to come as a shock anymore, is it?

Amanda Seyfried is one of those actors that could really be great if she didn't chose to be in bad movies. She tends to add a good side to something bad. Her career could have a good boost if her agent didn't say "Here's a movie that will make you popular with only teenagers." I remember your thoughts on Jennifer's Body and I disagreed with it because I thought it was a "so bad it's good" movie. Although, I forgot to mention that Ms. Seyfried contributed a lot to make that movie fun to watch. Then again, it's all opinions.

I'm actually interested in this movie and I'm happy that Bob didn't decide to go the easy way and blast Paranormal activity 3 instead.

Movie sounds good, only deepens my belief that I don't like seeing Olivia Wild on screen. Her eyes always spaz out when they shouldn't.

I remember seeing Gattaca a year or so back, I thought it was alright, it was pretty cool that the whole dystopian element was kept at a believable level, but otherwise it didn't make much of an impression on me. So I was kind of surprised later when I found out it was such a critical darling, I would never have imagined that while watching it. Goes to show how average my taste in movies is :P

Anyways, nice review.

Nice to have Moviebob back (not the one re doing an old review about a movie which we all know wasn't good). I'll check this film out. Also you should, if there is enough time in your plate do an episode about underrated movies. Lord of war is one of them. Put this on your other show. ;)

CronoT:
I was thinking this was going to be a "modern retelling" of Logan's Run[1]. But, it seems like it's a bit deeper than that. I might give it a watch.

Also, it's good to see Hollywood giving some really accomplished TV actors a chance to try and break into the biz.

Exactly what I was thinking when I saw the shining clock on their arm's.

Btw Gattaca is one of my favourite distopian movies and Lord of War was just brilliant.
Simone was good but not as good as the other two.

Now I wanna see In Time, even though other reviews weren't that good.

I can not see this movie simply because the very basic premise of how the "Magic science death clock" bullshit works. It makes absolutely no scientific sense and might as well just be vampirism or something. The instant death if the time runs out, the fact that there seems to be no need for injected substances or maintenance, the lack of any explanation as to why this thing works and why people aren't just hacking more time on by the millions (it's not the same as counterfeiting, it would be significantly easier) just ruin the already rather ham fisted class struggle narrative of the story.

Maybe I could accept this more if we were in some sort of far flung future world, but considering the movie is set in the near future/alternate present and pretty much every single bit of every other technology has remained unchanged, I can't suspend my disbelief enough to over look this massive bit of "magic science".

Time is money, people!

Sorry Bob i just cant stand Timberlake I find him to be a douche. No matter what role he takes I see him as such and hence can't enjoy any movie hes in.

BTW I saw Lord of war and i liked it.

Still not convinced, the whole premise seems very contrived to me.
Its like someone came up with this great idea but forgot to think it through to the end.
Is there no Time black-market? Can't underground/free geneticists in other countries make the treatment permanent? Is this worldwide or just the US?

I mean the whole setup borders heavily on cyberpunk, or in this case biopunk, except that in those stories we always have the hackers, the crackers, the punks, the underground that works against or around the system.
For good reason I might add, because it showcases the adaptability of humanity, the flexibility and the perseverance.
Its what made Gattaca work, the underdog gaming the system, the rebellion against the system inherent in any good cyber or bioPUNK.

Its like in this universe all the people just accepted the reality it presents us, without question, and then by chance Hero Timberlake gets the chance to liberate the people and turn the tables on the "bad guys".

In Gattaca i never got the feeling that Vincent was the ONLY ONE to ever game the system, I imagined others taking advantage of those loopholes in the system too. Vincents was only a high profile gamble since he wanted to go to space, but how many cheated their way into other areas?
In Gattaca i also never felt like there is an antagonist per se, the investigator just did his job, some people inside the space agency were sympathetic even when they found out (the doc).
The system was the enemy.

In "In Time" we have a group of antagonists, the rich. I get the feeling that its not even a problem inherent in the system presented, but rather the people running it.

This story feels a lot weaker than Gattaca.

Also I don't particularly like to be heavy-handedly preached to (even if the message is true and worthwhile).

Mangue Surfer:

Scrustle:
The premise of this movie sounds really stupid to me. Maybe it's because David Firth got there way before Hollywood.

No dude, it's because you are a gamer and gamers live in this constant mental gymnastic to imagined a world where influence and inspiration are crimes. Seriously, every threat in a gamer site has the obligatory; "its sucks, was done before". Everything was done before. This concept or part of this was already explored since the Victorian era.

When did I say anything about influence and inspiration being a crime? I'm just saying I've seen this idea before a long time ago in that video, therefore I can't take this film seriously. If no-one copied anyone else's ideas there would be no progress at all and we would still be living in caves.

I loved lord of war to!

The Good: The movie makes it's message work by making economics a Zero Sum Game.

The Bad: It goes to an crazy point to make it work. In real life economics is not a Zero Sum Game and I sick and tired of "evil rich people" who are strait out of a cartoon. People do not work that way! (In the Western World anyway)

I'm surprised that this is the director who made Lord of War. While not a masterpiece, it was fun and interesting (which is more than you can say for everything else he has made). Still, might check this one out later if I find myself in the mood for something infuriatingly preachy and bluntly written.

Could be worth a watch just to see if Timberlake manages to out-bland Hawke's role in Gattaca.

I say old chap:
I remember Lord of War, damn my friends and I like that film.

One of the few Nic Cage films that I like.

and its good to see I wasn't the only one that felt the Gattaca vibe with In Time.

You... want Beavis and Butthead to come back on TV?
...
Actually, they're not as bad as what IS on MTV nowadays so I suppose it would be a net improvement.

GOD... B&B an improvement... ugh... I can't believe I just wrote that...

Elijah Newton:

While I quite liked Gattaca and found it clever and unique, would point out that Niccol also is known for The Truman Show, which in my most H of O's got most of its ideas from Dark City. That could just be me, though.

Either way, needs less glowy-arm-bits and more jellybeans.

They came out the same exact year.

I think the freakiest thing about this movie is that your friend's hot sister can be exactly the same age as their hot mom and also exactly the same age as your friend's hot grandmother who are all 25 but probably have ridiculous Alzheimer's. Add that to the fact that a grown man's mom can be Olivia Wilde without age makeup and you have the potential for a severely genetically screwed up future a generation or two down the line.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have this feeling that the very possible Kentuckosity of the future is not addressed, unlike, say in this movie's undeniable inspiration: Brave New World, in which everybody is cloned and has severely effective birth control.

Can't understand why Bob liked this film so much. For me it was more on the "so bad it's good" side, only not bad enough.

First of all, while the whole time is money idea is good, where the picture goes with it is not. The poor proletarian majority is being exploited by the EVIL rich minority. Crikey, where have I heard that before! Oh hello grandpa Marx, didn't see you there. Come on people, the idea of economic exploitation was so fully explored we had a whole superpower build upon defying it, which didn't quite work out it the end.

After that we have the soul-crushingly predictable narrative. That I was bored enough to actually bother trying to predict the upcoming events in this film is telling enough, but the accuracy of my predictions was just depressing. I am not a professional critic and I can't afford to dedicate much of my time to cinema, so it's not like I see so much movies that every new one looks the same.

So in the end, the movie failed to entertain me due to it's predictability and it failed to give me food for thought because I'm just that smart and educated and know all about conflict theories (sarcasm intended). It's a genuinely bad film. Also the special effects sucked.

Regards.

I was wondering why the tone of the trailers reminded me so much of Gattaca. Aside that the premise obviously is along the same lines as it. I'm looking forward to seeing this now.

Aureliano:
I think the freakiest thing about this movie is that your friend's hot sister can be exactly the same age as their hot mom and also exactly the same age as your friend's hot grandmother who are all 25 but probably have ridiculous Alzheimer's. Add that to the fact that a grown man's mom can be Olivia Wilde without age makeup and you have the potential for a severely genetically screwed up future a generation or two down the line.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have this feeling that the very possible Kentuckosity of the future is not addressed, unlike, say in this movie's undeniable inspiration: Brave New World, in which everybody is cloned and has severely effective birth control.

This movie is not a proper sci-fi. There is simply no coherent explanation of how the tech came about and no exploration of what the consequences of it's use might be (I mean other than rich people turning into EVIL overlords). It would not be bad really to disregard all that and go for the societal struggle, if the movie didn't suck at that by being too anvilicious and total lack of imagination.

P.S. What next, a Dirac equation in CAPTCHA?

Only thing that is stopping me from seeing this in theaters: Timberlake.

Sounds interesting. Except, you know, evil rich people. That's about as common a bad guy now as "evil communists" some twenty - thirty years ago. Oh well. Rich people are easy to villainize, so what the heck.

I love Gattaca and Lord of War. I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Gattaca and Lord of War were both that rare breed of animal, the smart movie that is actually smart--as opposed to "smart" movies that are actually dumb: Vanilla Sky, Limitless, Surrogates, Minority Report, etc. So I'm a bit more hopeful that this film will favour its directorial DNA instead of the latter trends.

The premise actually reminded me of a mid-80s West German film I saw years ago: Morgengrauen (released as "Time Troopers" in North America). They also used lifespan as currency, with the difference being those who lived lavish, decadent lifestyles were guaranteed an early death while those who lived extremely frugally would live well into their senior years. Either way, when your credit was up, the agents called Exit Men showed up to shuffle you off this mortal coil. That's all I really remember about it.

Gunnyboy:

Elijah Newton:

While I quite liked Gattaca and found it clever and unique, would point out that Niccol also is known for The Truman Show, which in my most H of O's got most of its ideas from Dark City. That could just be me, though.

They came out the same exact year.

Well I'll be damned, so they did. This does not say anything good about my memory.

I can't believe some of you guys haven't seen Gattaca. It's a must watch. Lord of War was pure gold. I think I will see this movie. :D