Total Confusion

Rating: 1/10 (6 December 2007)

I'm confused. Very much so even...
I just saw Children of Men. A movie which currently holds a stunning nr 147# position on IMDb and is critically acclaimed. A movie with also little to no plot (and what it had was dumbfoundingly illogical and übersimplistic), wasted performances by otherwise fine to even great actors and a political or social slant so inane, so completely sophomoric that it's hard to believe this movie was made as a serious attempt at social commentary. Alas, the extra's on the DVD leave no room for ambiguity. No spoof here, this was meant to be serious...
So we have one fertile/pregnant woman amidst 3 billion who are not. We have an organisation presented to us in a lame stork-joke, which ocupies itself with getting the human race fertile again. That is, if this organisation even exists. They set out to find a raft to paddle to that phantom organisation which is said to bob somewhere around the coast of England. Why they chose to not just buy a raft but get one in one of the most violent parts of the country where bullets fly freely, tanks shoot at anything that moves and walking cameramen are trying to set records for the longest single-take ever made, all this with presumably the only infant alive in the world, is never even remotely tried to be explained.
I really don't mind that pompous, vacuous films are being made under the pretext of being subtle, deep and insightful. What gets a rise out of me is that people can't see a really terribly made movie for what it is, but in stead sing praise, forgive the exuberant defects they are willing to admit this movie has and vote it a ten anyway, without breaking a sweat. Like the headline-reading buffoons or game-console addicts they are.
Shame, especially to the professional moviecritics who along their careers surely must have seen movies like The Usual Suspects for plot and suspense, Full Metal Jacket for steadycam cinematography, It happened One Night for social commentary and God knows how many other quality films that have been produced over the years.
No, these movies were in fact never made. Apparently the line was drawn at October 2006, conveniently forgetting that a particular scene should display some profundity if you accompany it by long and abstruse orchestral manouvres. Forgetting that movies used to have some form of plot other than something any writer for Sesame Street could come up with using nothing but a broken pen and a paper napkin. And Forgetting that overexposing, completely plotdriven and patronizing scripts don't usually help the actors to do their jobs convincingly nor challenge a moviegoer in any way.
But..you've already seen this caper.