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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
In Time (Blu-ray) (2011)

In Time (Blu-ray) (2011)

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Released 28-Feb-2012

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Sci-Fi Action Main Menu Audio & Animation
Featurette
Deleted Scenes
More…-Live Extras
Rating ?
Year Of Production 2011
Running Time 109:15
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered Cast & Crew
Start Up Ads Then Menu
Region Coding 4 Directed By Andrew Niccol
Studio
Distributor

Twentieth Century Fox
Starring Cillian Murphy
Justin Timberlake
Amanda Seyfried
Shyloh Oostwald
Johnny Galecki
Colin McGurk
Case ?
RPI ? Music Craig Armstrong


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1
English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 5.1
Catalan dts 5.1
German dts 5.1
Russian dts 5.1
Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
French Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 1080p
Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English for the Hearing Impaired
Arabic
Cantonese
Catalan
Chinese
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Estonian
Finnish
French
German
Hungarian
Indonesian
Latvian
Lithuanian
Norwegian
Portuguese
Russian
Korean
Slovenian
Spanish
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Ukranian
Vietnamese
Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    As long term readers of this site may know, I enjoy sci-fi movies and will often give movies a go which have an interesting premise even if they have done poorly or received bad reviews at theatrical release. In Time is a great example of that sort of film. It has a very interesting premise but did not set the world on fire at the box office, especially in the US. The film certainly has a pedigree that is linked to quality science fiction, as it was written, directed & produced by Andrew Niccol, the New Zealand born filmmaker who started his career with Gattaca and then followed it with The Truman Show, which resulted in an Oscar nomination for his screenplay. Unfortunately, since then his projects have not had the same level of success with films like S1mone and Lord of War, hardly firing either critically or at the box office.

    The concept here is that in a future not that far away money has gone and the only currency is time, anything you want you must pay for with some of the time you have left before you die. You get 25 years to grow up and live but once you hit 25, you stop growing any older physically but a clock on your arm starts to count down. You only have 1 more year to live unless you earn more time by working or gambling or in other ways. If your clock hits zero you die instantly. This has resulted in a society where the time rich are separated from the time poor, into areas referred to as 'time zones'. The poor live day to day, often only having enough time to get through the day unless they make some time. Here prices are on the rise and wages are going down. It is Darwinian capitalism, to some degree the logical extension of free market economics. Meanwhile the rich as cared to do anything even vaguely dangerous in case they lose their eternal life accidentally. Time can be transferred between people by scanners and by touching arms.

    In this world lives a young man, Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) who is poor and works day to day to stay alive. He is 28 and lives with his mother who is about 50 but looks 25 still. Two events get the story moving, firstly Will meets a man at a bar who has over 100 years on his clock. He is flashing his time about buying drinks for everyone, which is not done in the ghetto. A group of lowlife criminals arrive with a plan to steal the man's time and he seems to have planned this as a way out of the life he leads. Will saves him and they escape together. While Will sleeps the man transfers the century to him and then throws himself of a bridge. The second event which happens at around the same time is that his mother accidentally runs out of time due to a sudden rise in bus fares. These two evenst cause Will to decide to cross timezones and see if he can make his way in the rich area, called New Greenwich.

    These events attract the attention of the timekeepers (the police force) led by Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy) who investigate what they believe to be a murder. In New Greenwich, Will meets the Weis family, who have made their fortune by lending time at exhorbitant interest rates. The family head is Phillipe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser from Mad Men) who spends his time gambling at a high stakes casino. He is ruthless and highly protective of his fortune. Will also meets his daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried) who sees him as exciting and dangerous. Will & Amanda quickly form a  relationship and end up on the run together from the timekeepers and the criminals from the bar.

    The concept here is certainly a good one but like so many sci-fi films it does not quite work in delivery. The rules around how time works as a currency seem to change at moments in the film or at best are not explained well, so you are left wondering how it works exactly. The cast and acting are decent but no-one really stands out as a great performance worthy of particular note. Technically, there is some nice cinematography by Roger Deakins however some of the CGI is very obvious. This is not a big stunt based, action filled sci-fi film but is more of a thriller or drama in style, which is consistent with Niccol's other work.

    In summary, I really liked the concept of this film and do not feel like I wasted my time watching it, however, it is also disappointing because the delivery does not do justice to the concept.

   

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Transfer Quality

Video

    The video quality is generally excellent but suffers from some minor aliasing.

    The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio which is the original aspect ratio. It is 1080p encoded using AVC.

    The picture was very clear and sharp throughout.The shadow detail was excellent.

    The colour was also excellent, bright and vivid throughout.

    The only problem with this transfer is some occassional aliasing/shimmer style artefacts such as on a jacket at 7:00. This is a pretty minor quibble.

    There are subtitles available in English and loads of other languages. They are clear and easy to read.

    There are no obvious layer changes during playback.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is very good.

    This disc contains an English soundtrack in DTS HD-MA 5.1 along with DTS 5.1 soundtracks in Catalan, German & Russian plus Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks in Audio Descriptive English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Thai & Ukrainian.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to hear and understand throughout.

    The music by Craig Armstrong is very suitable for the film and sounds good on this soundtrack.

    The surround speakers were used a lot for gunfire, car chases, voices and more.

    The subwoofer was also used a lot to support traffic noises, car crashes, gunshots and music.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

    Small selection of extras.

Menu

    The menu included sounds and pictures from the film. It was preceded by trailers.

The Minutes (16:52)

    A great explanation of the film's concept told by interviews with the characters. To my mind some of this material should have been included in the film which would have made it clearer and easier to follow. I wonder if that was the director's original intent. Definitely worth watching.

Deleted Scenes (12:52)

    Another worthwhile extra which includes some important scenes which would have added value to the final film. Definitely watch these.

Live Extras

    The disc also allows those with network access from their player to check for new trailers and do live lookup on IMDB.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    The Blu-ray version of this film is the same in Region A.

Summary

    A worthwhile sci-fi with an interesting concept but less successful execution.

    The video quality is generally excellent but suffers from one minor flaw.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The extras are small in number but good quality.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Daniel Bruce (Do you need a bio break?)
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Review Equipment
DVDSONY BDP-S760 Blu-ray, using HDMI output
DisplaySharp LC52LE820X Quattron 52" Full HD LED-LCD TV . Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p.
Audio DecoderBuilt into BD player. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum.
AmplificationPioneer VSX-511
SpeakersMonitor Audio Bronze 2 (Front), Bronze Centre & Bronze FX (Rears) + Sony SAW2500M Subwoofer

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