In Time feels very much like a Philip K. Dick story in the sense that it leverages an interesting science fiction concept to provide some simple insights into what is normally a fairly complex system. That being the things that define class and economics in our world. That alone makes it pretty awesome, but there is the detractor that In Time is far from subtle. In fact, it's basically a large club with rusty nails sticking out of it. Although the trailers pretty much give it away, I'll try and summarize real quick. In the future described in the movie, time is the new currency. At age 25, a person's timer of one year timer starts counting down. No one ages past 25, but when the timer runs out, you die. A person's salary is paid in time and everything costs time. Four minutes for a coffee, an hour to get a hotel room for the night. The economics come in when you realize it's a closed system. The only time in the system comes from new people being born. If a person has 1000 years of time on their clock, they got it by taking time from other people. A lot of other people. So basically, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and these classes are enforced by Time Zones, which are basically toll booths that cost significant amounts of time to pass through... prices the poor could never afford. And then there are the Time Keepers who are basically police who work to keep the time economy in check. There's a lot going on, but it works... except for being so damned blunt. Interesting things to note, there are no cell phones. I'm guessing the exorbitant price of a cell plan would kill everyone in a couple days. The cars have a sort of electric sound effect, but also all have exhaust systems. Vehicles are all 1960s-1970s in style. I don't really remember seeing any computers. Maybe information like that would be too dangerous? Or maybe when you're living day to day, spending all night on Facebook is a terrible use of time if you're dead in the morning. Still, it's a great ride that's paced well.
