Way overrated

Rating: 6/10 (18 November 2006)

I wanted to like this flick so much - but there were too many flaws. I finished with 6/10 considering the fact I wouldn't even finish a movie below 5.
Acting is adequate, and indeed Owen is solid and Caine shines. No worries here.
Camera was really impressive. This is the movies strongest point indeed.
Story telling really laked in many cases in my opinion, well, I guess I have to "go read the book" to judge this after all.
The set was quite okay, but had some cheap (="realistic" ?) feeling to it. Don't know what didn't feel right for me in detail... Kinda B-movie-esquire.
Over emphasize of the guerrilla (rather war) picture was disturbing at best and annoying most of the time. Too long, too superficial.
As this is a "we have a message" film, I might just point out that I got "the message" and I still would have preferred to keep Holy Mary motives out of it. Not my piece of cake for sure.
Still I think that is one thing to remember: All apocalyptic dictatorship movies have this too obvious "1984", "Fahrenheit 451", "Soylent Green", "Brazil" and to a lesser extent "Planet of the apes", "Bladerunner", "12 Monkeys" references. So very limited originality.
I just hope that the age of "mashups" in which we are in doesn't limit creativity all of the time.
Currently it is rated at 8.0 at IMDb. This is going to change indeed, but I cannot see any "true classic" quality here.