In Time [Blu-ray + DVD + Digital copy]

Every second counts in this sexy, stylish action-thriller starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. In a future where time is literally money and aging stops at 25, the only way to stay alive is to earn, borrow, steal or inherit more time. But when a poor, working-class man (Timberlake) is falsely accused of murder, he teams up with a beautiful heiress (Seyfried) and must figure out a way to bring down the corrupt system before their dwindling life clocks run out!

As a storyteller, Andrew Niccol tends to think big, tackling heady subjects such as genetic predestination (iGattaca/i), the nature of reality (iThe Truman Show/i), and celebrity in the cyber age (iS1m0ne/i). iIn Time/i, Niccol's first film since 2005's iLord of War/i, has a typically gigantic premise--a world where everyone over 25 years old must pay for every continued second of their existence--but stumbles in the execution. While the ideas are exceedingly clever, the telling isn't especially witty. Justin Timberlake stars as a goodhearted but desperate minimum-wager trapped in a society where the rich are essentially immortal and the poor see their lifespan shorten with every purchase. (A cup of coffee costs 4 minutes, taking the bus also takes 30 minutes off of your life, and so on.) After being gifted with a century by a mysterious benefactor, he begins a romance with a beautiful socialite (Amanda Seyfried), whose father holds the key to the entire monetary system. Matters are complicated with the introduction of a relentless time cop (Cillian Murphy) with his own motivations for restoring the unnatural balance of things. Niccol has fun laying out the aspects of a world where even the elderly are genetically frozen at age 25 (the scenes where Timberlake interacts with his mother, played by a disturbingly spry Olivia Wilde, are an unsavory hoot), but has difficulty translating the ingenuity of his concept to a compelling narrative, which rapidly devolves into a mix of uninspired chase scenes and a succession of time-related puns that would have trouble passing muster on a Laffy Taffy wrapper. (The bad guys threaten to clean Timberlake's clock. Repeatedly.) While science fiction aficionados will find much to chew on in Niccol's askew reality, iIn Time/i never quite hits the marks that its own ideas suggest. As a film, it's more fun to think about than watch. i--Andrew Wright/i