Disappointing Chase with Little Story - What were you watching anyway?

Rating: 5/10 (10 July 2007)

Very disappointing. After reading the positive reviews I was ready for a really good near future sci/fi fantasy, with amazing visuals, performance and of course a killer story line.
Children of Men unfortunately fails in almost all categories - primarily because the build up to the ending is HUGE and falls FLAT on its face. This is a chase movie (a fair one at that) with little storyline, lots of unanswered questions and wasted performances.
Spoilers: The one woman who can and has had a baby in 18 years, floats in a battered row boat through a dense fog, while a ship called Tomorrow arrives, the reluctant hero dies(?)unceremoniously and she announces to her newborn miracle... "we're safe now". An unsatisfying end to a messy production.
One of the worst endings to yet another aimlessly wandering apocalypse story that I've ever been subjected to. All of us who watched it kinda looked around with a that's it?!" expression, staring with wonder that we were led on an overly long chase scene with unsympathetic characters to a mindless ending. There was very little to like about this film.
We're all infertile until a promiscuous young girl called "Kee" is having a baby that a terrorist group wants to keep for their own purposes... and oh yeah, half the government army stands by and lets the baby walk right past them when they have the chance to take her and the wounded hero without firing a shot (most of the film is written THAT well!) :)
What was good? Visuals were wonderful, the look and atmosphere were thoroughly well done and the images of London in collapse were excellent. The opening scene packs a nice punch but then its all downhill from there. Some of the side characters were well imagined and usually the only thing worth watching, with the exception of the terrorists who were cardboard cookie cutter characterizations.
Julianne Moore is completely wasted in the film and mercifully has her brains blown out early on. Michael Caine is the only character we ever really care about and he also is relegated to being cannon fodder. Clive Owen delivers his usual just above average part as he is whisked through this story-less but visually interesting waste of time. There's just no one to care about and no depth of story to keep anything together.
Children of Men never develops into anything remotely interesting and is just another excuse for CGI, big buck sets and a chase scene masquerading as Sci/fi - fantasy.
I have no idea if the story this was based on resembles the film, I would hope it had more flesh to it. A definite must miss film.