"I don't have time to explain," Will (Justin Timberlake) says at the beginning of Andrew Niccol's sci-fi allegory. Well, I've still got a few questions. Like, if this is the future, why is everyone driving a '63 Lincoln? And how do you set up a system in which people stop aging at 25, but thereafter have to earn every minute of life? The consequences — that the rich monopolize time and buy immortality at the expense of the poor, who are doled out their lives hand-to-watch — I can understand, partly because someone mentions it every five minutes. Lumpen but hunky prole Will seeks justice and kidnaps Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), the daughter of time mogul Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser) and holds her for ransom for 1,000 years in unmarked seconds. But the Timekeeper (Cillian Murphy) is on his trail. At first . . . well, timely, Niccol's metaphor gets silly fast.
