NEW Zealand-born screenwriter Andrew Niccol has consistently conjured dark clouds with his dystopian visions of life.

His debut feature Gattaca cast a chill with its depiction of a society determined by genetic superiority and he won an Oscar for The Truman Show, which took the concept of a Big Brother reality TV series to chilling extremes.

Then he suggested in the comedy S1m0ne that troublesome Hollywood stars could be replaced by digital actors.

In Time, which he also directs, he imagines an emotionally starved globe in which money has become obsolete and time is the currency.

People are engineered to age until they’re 25 years old then a timer, embedded in their arm, begins to tick down to their demise.

You can earn, steal or inherit more time to extend your life expectancy, leading to a vast divide between the haves and have-nots. The wealthy are essentially immortal: forever 25 years old in physical appearance, with centuries to squander on their body clocks. Meanwhile, the poor don’t know if they can claw back enough minutes to see another sunrise.

Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives in the ghetto with his mother, making ends meet by working at a factory.

On a night out, he has a chance encounter with handsome yet suicidal rich man Henry (Matt Bomer), who donates 100 years of his time to Will’s body clock.

Granted access to the most exclusive parts of the city, Will learns the truth about how Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser) and men in power manipulate the populace for their own gain and he forges an unlikely alliance with Philippe’s daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried) to bring down the corrupt system.

Meanwhile, time thief Fortis (Alex Pettyfer) and timekeeper Raymond (Cillian Murphy) both hunt for him, determined to take back the time Henry gave away.

The film is a neat concept stylishly executed, with some well-orchestrated action sequences to paper over a few cracks in logic.

Timberlake is an appealing hero, kindling smouldering screen chemistry with Seyfried, whose role is underwritten.

Kartheiser and Pettyfer are two-dimensional villains but Murphy brings depth to his hunter.

The film holds our interest, building to a satisfying if improbable close that ensures we don’t feel we have wasted our own precious minutes.