Directed by Andrew Niccol
(PG-13)
**
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Andrew Niccol’s dystopian thriller couldn’t be timelier, said Stephanie Zacharek in Movieline​.com. “An allegory about the disparity between the rich and the poor,” it envisions a future in which everyone stops aging at 25, and those wishing to live beyond 26 must earn or steal the extra time—unless they belong to the superwealthy class that has attained de facto immortality. But even though it echoes Occupy Wall Street sentiments, the movie “has so much style and energy” that it’s never just a political tract. Star Justin Timberlake “continues to demonstrate that he is a real actor, with screen presence,” said Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. Unfortunately, his role here doesn’t require much: Early on, he’s given a large gift of time from a suicidal stranger only to be accused of the wealthy Samaritan’s murder. From then on, Timberlake is simply a man on the run, towing along a beautiful new girlfriend (Amanda Seyfried). After the “taut and intriguing” first 45 minutes, all we get in the end is “a noisy, squalling chase movie,” said Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly. The whole endeavor simply “runs out of imaginative gas.”
