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The world has become a place where time has become currency. Thanks to scientific advances people can stop aging at 25, but it comes with a catch: after reaching 25 a person is genetically-engineered to live only one more year. The time is used as currency, you can earn more at work but you sell it for goods and other services. Once your time runs out, you die.
Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) is a young man living in the ghetto, one of the poorest Zones of the world. He lives day by day, making just enough to pass each day with the occasional charity from his mother Rachel Salas (Olivia Wilde). Inflation and raised quotas however make survival harder and harder, and Will sees young men and women dying in the streets. Like everyone else in the ghetto however, it is a fact of life to see people running out of time and dying everywhere young, and he only focuses on trying to earn enough to celebrate Rachel’s birthday.
After he finishes his work in a factory, Will and his friend Borel (Johnny Galecki) head to a bar. There they see a man treating everyone to drinks and drawing much attention to his arm, which lists him as having a century to live. Will knows that the man did not belong to the ghetto and was likely to draw attention to himself. Sure enough the Minutemen shows up, armed and ready to forcibly take the man’s time. Borel is naturally frightened of the confrontation and leaves, but Will interferes and helps the man escape. The two flee from the Minutemen and eventually find an old building to hide in. The man introduces himself as Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer) and tells Will of the time-is-currency system. It had been established as a means of population control after the advances made in anti-aging proceses, but as people were still surviving the inflation and lower ‘wages’ were designed to continue in order to keep the population in control. This currency system also meant that the rich could live much longer then normal and essentially become immortal, while the poor died in dozens. Henry however is tired of living for so long, an indignant Will tells him that the rich basically did not deserve their time. Unwilling to abandon the depressed man, Will offers to stay with the man until tomorrow morning.
The next day however Will wakes alone, with a century of time and a message telling Will not to waste the time. Through a window, Will sees Henry seated on the edge of the bridge and realizes the man plans to commit suicide. He runs out to stop him, but just misses him as Henry’s time runs out and he falls into the river. Will sees street cameras recording him and runs back home.
He meets Borel with his family, and shows him his new time. To thank Borel for being his friend for so long, Will gives him a decade. Borel warns him that staying in the ghetto with that much time was going to get him killed, so Will takes that advice and calls a private car to pick him up and take him to a richer Time Zone. He has cleaned himself up to blend in with the rich, but his ghetto-habits remain as he often moved too fast as if running out of time.
Meanwhile, Henry’s body is discovered by the Timekeepers, a body of authority much like the police. Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy) notices the street cameras and examines the footage. When he expresses surprise at learning about Will, his colleagues ask him if he knew the suspect and whether or not he had a criminal record. Raymond corrects them, telling them he did not know the current Will Salas but he did know the senior Will Salas, who was indeed a criminal before he died. Concerned that Will would be following his father’s footsteps, Raymond officially charges Will with theft and murder of Henry Hamilton. The Timekeepers were mobilized to locate and arrest Will Salas on the spot.
At a casino, Will meets Phillipe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser), arguably the richest man in the world. At a high stakes game, Will bets almost his whole life on the line and comes out as victor. Phillipe is impressed, as is Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), his beautiful but sheltered daughter. Phillipe invites Will to his mansion for another party, and partially to see Sylvia again, Will agrees. Knowing to be prepared, he purchases a car and drives to the Weis mansion. There Phillipe reintroduces him to Sylvia, as well as his wife Michele (Bella Heathcote) and mother-in-law, all three of whom looked the same age due to their wealthy background. The women are followed by guards all the time, but Will convinces Sylvia to let loose and have fun. Feeling oppressed by her father and his men, Sylvia agrees to take a swim in the water, connecting with Will and admitting that she wished she could often do something wild and crazy. Phillipe had always restricted his family members though, and sure enough he soon comes looking for her. Sylvia and Will had just made themselves presentable again when the Timekeepers appeared and arrests Will.
Raymond lays out the charges to Will and briefly mentions Will’s father before reclaiming the time Will had, reducing it to a few hours so that Will would live only until his execution. As soon as Raymond leaves, Will fights off the other Timekeepers and holds Sylvia hostage, escaping out the mansion. Raymond commits himself to chasing them, even taking personal risks that other Timekeepers avoided. Despite the car chase, Will manages to throw Raymond off their trial and escapes back to the ghetto with Sylvia, who bemoans the fact that she had wished for excitement.
As soon as they return to the ghetto, the two fall into a trap the Minuteman had set. They had been looking for Will, vengeful and angry at how Will had helped Henry escape. While Will and Sylvia remain unconscious, the Minutemen discover the Will only had a little time left and was thus worth nothing, Sylvia however had about a decade and so they take hers instead. The men were forced to run before they could take all her time, but Sylvia panics because she had never been reduced to having so little time. Will tells her that ghetto people lived day by day and she should not be worried, instead he brings her to find Borel, hoping that he could give them some time. To his grief, he learns that Borel had over indulged with the time he had been given, drinking himself to death and not only wasting the time but leaving him family alone.
Will manages to buy them more time by pawning off Sylvia’s diamond earrings, but knows it isn’t enough. He calls Phillipe and demands a ransom for Sylvia’s return, but Raymond intercepts the call and warns Will not to follow his father’s path. Will learns that his father’s crime was not stealing time but “something much more serious”, unfortunately he was preoccupied with other worries and instead focused on the ransom. His message was enough clues for Raymond, who deduced where Will was hiding and assured Phillipe he would bring his daughter back safely.
The next day the ransom is unpaid, Will says to Sylvia that it was likely because her father was prevented by the Timekeepers but Sylvia saw it as proof that her father didn’t care about her. Nevertheless, Will decides to let her go and tells her to make a call to her family. Since they were in the ghetto after all, he also gives her a gun to protect herself. Just as they split so that Sylvia can make her call, Raymond appears and nearly shoots an unsuspecting Will. A panicked Sylvia shoots Raymond instead, and Will corners Raymond and attempts to take his time. Raymond however has very little, for it is Timekeeper practice to carry only a little time to avoid being targets. Since Will was planning to take Raymond’s car he transfers some of his own time to him before Will and Sylvia hijacks the car and leaves him alone in the ghetto.
Timekeeper cars stored some time inside them, but not enough, and Sylvia realizes that using a police car was essentially asking for attention. They end up robbing another car and passenger, where they learn that they had both been officially recognized as convicts with a reward of ten years to anyone who could bring about their arrest. The news wasn’t just for the ghetto, it was in the whole world and Phillipe found himself in an international conference assuring his business partners that his daughter would not crash the current economic system. An injured Raymond manages to escape the ghetto, verbally harassed the whole time, and meets with Phillipe. The businessmen attempts to bribe Raymond into ‘rescuing’ his daughter but Raymond tells him that due to Sylvia’s actions, an arrest warrant will be placed for her as well. If Phillipe interferred and tried to save his daughter, Raymond will see him arrested as well.
Raymond’s caution was well deserved as Sylvia, partially after seeing the poverty of the ghetto and partially as revenge on her father, began taking a more active part in criminal activities. She and Will started robbing banks and giving away time, resisting the Timekeepers at all times. While this endeared them to most people in the ghetto, the Minutemen held onto grudges and eventually confronted them again. Will learns it is not just the rich and the Timekeepers oppressing the normal citizens, people like Minutemen were there as well, the poor preying on the poor and being allowed to do so as long as they did not start preying on the rich as well. Even with the extra time, people were still robbing and killing each other for it. The system was still working, if they wanted to overthrow it altogether it would require more years then they could find: or so it seemed. Sylvia knew where they could find that time – through her father.
Sylvia returns home, pretending to turn herself and distracting her father so that Will could sneak up on him. The three enter Phillipe’s vault, where they found all the million years he had gathered. Phillipe tries to tell them that at most they could replace the system with a similar one since it was always in an individual’s interest to live forever even at the cost of another’s, but the two convicts are unconvinced. After locking Phillipe in a room, the two convicts again return to the ghetto. While keeping the Timekeepers distracted, they pass the time to a little girl who starts giving it out to the people.
Raymond pursues Will and Sylvia to a remote area as they began to ran out of time. Will could see that Raymond was a dedicated officer, and judging by his ability to move guesses that Raymond himself came from the ghetto. Unfortunately, his dedication to duty meant neglect for himself, and Raymond runs out of time. He dies in front of them, and with minutes to spare Will manages to transfer some of the time stored in the car into himself. He manages to transfer some of Sylvia as well, saving her life. The two of them only had enough for a day, but they knew they could do plenty in a day, for time should never be wasted.
Soon, across the globe people from ghettos and other poor areas began moving to other Time Zones as they are living longer and helping each other do so. Watching the news, the Timekeepers decide that their jobs were finished. Phillipe and the rest of the rich world realize that a new order and system was coming to play. Any lingering remains of the old system was already being destroyed, for Will and Sylvia had taken it upon themselves to redistribute time by robbing the banks and giving time for people to live.

This is a 2011 adaptation of Logan’s Run and Soylent Green. A good vehicle for Justin Timberlake. Too bad he keeps taking roles in B and C movies when he is talented enough to be more selective and go for the big role that will get him an Oscar nod. He is multitalented for his age and should really be taking advantage of it. I cannot for the life of me figure out how Amanda Big Eyes keeps getting cast in movies. She can”t act and those big eyes are just annoying to look at. She was accurately cast in Red Riding Hood and will be a natural to play Igor if they ever do a remake of Young Frankenstein.

Yet another Sci Fi thriller. Very predictable but watchable.

Rating: 3.4 out of 5