From the director of Gattaca and The Truman Show comes a movie seemingly perfect for our time. And if I've learned anything from watching In Time, it's to drive home that time metaphor with all the subtlety of a grandfather clock chiming.

In the near-ish future the world is divided into rich and poor time zones. The wealthy live forever, their aging arrested at 25. The poor are also frozen at 25 but live day to day, some even hour to hour. In this world of have and have nots, the currency is time. Everyone carries their own personal doomsday clock imprinted in glowing numerals on their arm. Want a coffee? Deduct four minutes. Want to travel to where the upper crust live? The toll booth takes a year off your life.

Into this neo-Orwellian realm where the workers toil away in factories to earn another day comes Will (Justin Timberlake), who with a combination of street smarts, luck and perfect skull stubble finds his lifespan jump from days to over a century. After a visit to the rich time zone of New Cambridge (which appears to be filled with extras from Gossip Girl), Will becomes a modern day Robin Hood, upsetting the balance in this clockwork society.

If Will is Robin Hood, that makes Cillian Murphy the Sheriff. He's timekeeper Raymond Leon, the arm of the law, dogged in his pursuit. Soon Will kidnaps a high society gal Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), and In Time lurches into Bonnie and Clyde mode as the two go on the run from the law while trying to buy the poor some more....sigh....time.

Justin Timberlake becomes a modern day Robin Hood. (Stephen Vaughan/20 Century Fox/Associated Press)

The heart of the story is the issue of inequality. Those who live in the ghetto-like time zones are the 99 per cent. But director Andrew Niccol squanders the timeliness on a hokey script that considers driving a truck into a bank to be a heist and strip poker romance. In Time is the kind of film where someone who has ridden buses all his life drives a car in reverse during a high-speed chase. Night turns to day without warning and the bad guys wear snazzy fedoras and suspenders like rejects from The Hat Squad.

Given the promise of the concept and the alluring trailer, not to mention the restrained elegance of Gattaca, In Time is a definite disappointment. As Will, Timberlake delivers a performance from the music video school of method acting and that had me pining for the emotional realism of Jason Statham. Amanda Seyfried plays the daddy's girl gone bad with glee and but even her natural exuberance can't make up for Sylvia's simplicity. The best of the bunch is Cillian Murphy, who imbues Raymond the timekeeper with sleepy-eyed malice. It's obvious his heart isn't in the job. While Niccol's script never fully explains his fanaticism, Murphy's world-weary sneer says volumes.

If the message is time is precious, the movie makes a point. This is two hours of your life you'll never get back.

RATING: One Glowing Green Star Out of Five