10 Movies That Abandoned Awesome Ideas Halfway Through
9. Time As A Currency - In Time
It's impossible to discuss high-concept movies that threw their best ideas away without mentioning In Time - an ingeniously-premised sci-fi action film from the once-great Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, The Truman Show).
The first half of the movie does a stellar job immersing the audience in a near-future where humans are genetically engineered to stop ageing at 25.
Time has become a universal currency, and when a civilian's time reaches zero, they die, meaning that the poor die off in droves while the wealthy are functionally immortal.
It's a fascinating, mind-bending concept that Niccol has plenty of fun with in the early going - for starters, Justin Timberlake's mother is played by the young and beautiful Olivia Wilde - but soon enough, In Time devolves into a more generic action flick.
Ultimately the allure of this world and the people merely trying to survive in it is substituted for a garden variety sci-fi riff on Bonnie and Clyde, as Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried's heroes attempt to redistribute time among the nation's masses while being targeted for their actions.