In Time. PG-13, 1 hr. 49 min. Directed by:
Andrew Niccol. Release Date: October 28, 2011.
I really liked this movie, but I had to watch it twice to be sure. Conceptually, I thought this was fantastic, although I'm not sure that I'd actually want to play in a world where longevity was traded like currency. As a person who watches a lot of sci fi, it's been a long time since I've seen alternate world sci fi done this well, like the last time just might have been The Matrix. When I stood back for a moment, just after the second viewing, I decided that Alicia Silverstone would have said that this was a total Monet. From a distance, everything kind of worked, and it was a fun movie to watch, albeit a bit predictable. When you got up an inspected the details, they were kind of a mess.
So here's the rub: I had two problems with the characters. The first is that I didn't like or empathize with any of them with the arguable exception of Alex Pettyfer's character. I don't even know most of their names, which is unusual for me. I didn't like Pettyfer's murderous time gangster bit, but I got him. Of all the people in this film, he was the one I understood the best. More strangely is that Pettyfer is just one of up to three antagonists, depending on how you talk about the characters. The second problem I had was more of a casting issue than anything else. Most of the women looked similar to me. Big, vibrant eyes rimmed with more eyeliner than most folks would consider appropriate; pale skin, hair cut around the face simply, in that frame kind of deal. Rich or poor, there was a strong resemblance between the cast members that I'm not sure was intention. It also wasn't until I spotted her name on the poster just above these words that I realized Amanda Seyfried is the female lead.
I was left with a few generally unanswered questions about how this world works. It was enough to make me look forward to a sequel, although the ending to this movie doesn't necessarily point me in that direction. I was left wondering if there was a way to "inherit" time left on the "clock" of someone who dies in an accident. They actually asked my question about whether it was possible to die in ways other than getting timed out. I wondered why more people weren't suiciding, considering the VAST percentage of the population who was literally living day to day, with the odds stacked against their survival, why weren't more people just living it up for awhile and then quietly dying?
Despite all this, I really dug In Time. I suspect in the fullness of time that it will find its way in to my DVD collection. It hasn't made me rethink my irrational hatred for Justin Timberlake yet, but each movie that he's in that I like pushes me closer to making that decision.
The Fly. R, 1 hr. 36 min. Directed by:
David Cronenberg. Release Date: August 15, 1986. DVD Release Date: September 5, 2000.
Since I've spent the last several months watching David Cronenberg movies, both as a prelude to and as aftermath from my first appearance on the LAMBcast, I've developed a certain feel for his movies. I suspect there will only rarely come a time when I don't recognize his work when I'm exposed to it. The Fly, in many ways, represents... a step back from his usual combination on story quirks: disgust/disfigurement, sexuality (particularly some 'deviant' pursuit therein), and violence, but not because of these things' absence. It's a step back because none of these three themes are as blatant as they are in other Cronenberg movies.
I've had Cronenberg movies make my gorge rise. I've been... startled by the graphic use of sexuality or violence in his films. The Fly was sort of the diet Coke of these things. It was one calorie worth of disgust, another of sex, and a third calorie of violence. All were used sparingly, and most were used (in Cronenberg's traditional methodology) to distinguish the otherness of Seth Brundle after he tests his teleporter device by putting himself in it.
The Fly has an interesting story that feels, at least partially, like it's based on good science, the crux of any science fiction tale. It has two major hurdles (for me) in the form of its stars: Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum. I only rarely like Davis: Thelma and Louise, A League of Their Own, and Beetlejuice are about it. I've never liked Goldblum, even when I like the movie, such as Independence Day. Together, they've created an abomination before film, by which I mean Earth Girls Are Easy. So, when I saw them together in this, it was a major problem. The good news was that I liked Geena Davis, but still didn't like Jeff Goldblum. I didn't like their relationship, which doesn't feel as if it evolves naturally within the confines of the story.
This is an interesting, slightly fun movie, with a lengthy gross-out near the end. The characters are a bit dated now. John Getz' in particular reminds of "80's Guy" from Futurama, but other than that, I have few complaints.
