As most of us are aware by now, Justin Timberlake is profusely attempting to become a bonafide actor. While mostly everyone agrees that his performance in The Social Network was great, he’s had a much harder time persuading us with his lacklustre performances in his other films. In Bad Teacher he was the weakest link and almost self-handlendly brought down the film, in Friend With Benefits he was okay but was saved by his palpable chemistry with Mila Kunis, and In Time he attempts to prove he can do action to poor results.

In this universe, people stop aging after 25 years and time has become the currency. Living in the ghetto zone with his mother, Rachel (Olivia Wilde), Will (Justin Timberlake) is barely making ends meet until he encounters Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer), a man possessing over a century. After Will saves Henry from some thugs led by Fortis (Alex Pettyfer), Henry gives all his time to Will before committing suicide. Will escapes the ghetto zone and travels to the rich zone where he befriends Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried) and together they attempt to redistribute time all the while a time keeper named Raymond (Cillian Murphy) hunts them down.

On paper, In Time has all the elements to make a truly brilliant and even groundbreaking science-fiction film. There’s the cinematography by the always amazing Roger Deakins, writer/director Andrew Niccol’s has proven with Lord of War and Gattaca that he can deliver exciting and thoughtful films, and he has managed to assemble a remarkable cast of young, able and promising actors. It because of these great things that one feels even more disappointed by how poorly Niccol handles the film. It is astounding how generic and overly dull In Time is.

The acting is a mixed bag. Cillian Murphy, Matt Bomer, Olivia Wilde and Vincent Karthesier all give effective performances that certainly elevate everything around them. However, these great actors are horribly misused and undermined by their one-dimensional characters and very little screen time. In Time instead favours those less able actors such as Amanda Seyfried, Alex Pettyfer and Justin Timberlake. These three give utterly poor and hollow performances. Seyfried is too stoic and uninvolved, Pettyfer displays a terrible accent and his character is basically useless, but Timberlake is the one who should reside most of the fault.

Timberlake’s performance isn’t atrocious as some people expected, but it isn’t good either. He fails at assembling an interesting character not only because the script won’t allow it, but also because he simply doesn’t rise up to the occasion. A far more able leading actor would’ve at least made his very presence engaging and enjoyable, but Timberlake gives us none of that. He doesn’t have the chops to carry a film like this and his only purpose is to give us nice man to look at. There’s really no involvement between him and the audience, and as a result you don’t care about what happens to him within the opening 10 minutes.

A lot of the blame must also be placed on Andrew Niccol for ever thinking Justin Timberlake could handle this film. Now that ladies and gentlemen is horrible casting at its finest. Timberlake’s inability to deliver an engaging performance also says a lot about Niccol as a director and how little he must seem to care about acting in his films. At least David Fincher brought out a great performance from an otherwise inexperienced wannabe actor. Moreover, Niccol fails horribly in the script department. A premise as cool as this one could’ve been so much more, it had a lot of potential that Niccol was unable to realize. The dialogue and story are boring, generic and completely forgettable.

In Time is the perfect example of a film that even with all the great elements in play couldn’t amount to more than a merely lacklustre science-fcition summer film. It’s really disappointed to see something with such potential be squandered by a generic script, poor acting, bad decisions and a less than capable direction. There were only two moments in the film I enjoyed and the rest was just simply me lying to myself by thinking things couldn’t possibly get worse. For another Justin Timberlake led vehicle, In Time is easily one his worst outings and for Andrew Niccol it is a colossal failure.

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