A Stinker  Amateur, imbecilic. The Villains are the 5-Star Reviewers

Rating: 1/10 (10 January 2007)

I've checked my voting record, and if I compare this wretch to the worst I've ever commented on (Auberge Espagnole and Capitaes d'Abril) those two stand out like cinematic giants. Actually, as I left the theater and hunted in my mind for another film as inept and devoid of dramatic sense and intelligence as this one, I could only think of Toxic Avenger, yet that film was shot with amateurs and a budget not more than 1000th of that wasted on Children of Man. And even Toxic Avenger adheres in its rough way to notions of Introduction (of some challenge, etc.), Development, Rising Action, etc., through to the Moment of Last Tension and Climax. Now imagine a film that begins with the Moment of Last Tension and carries that fever pitch through an hour and a half of senseless frenzy (like an insane contribution to the Theater of the Absurd) till it simply ends  with no true Climax, since there was never any dramatic plot development. In effect, this thing resembles a visual walkthrough for some shoot-anyone-who-moves video game.
The most sensible use of this material would thus have been to trash two-thirds and slice the remaining one-third into cut-scenes for another mindless action video game. The real challenge would be to create some vaguely coherent storyline to explain in the game booklet  something the makers of this film don't seem to have worried about. While the pathetic director and his compadres might object that Grand Theft Auto, for instance, hasn't much of a plot either, that would be somewhat misguided, in my estimation, as the player of an equally senseless video game is at least personally engaged as a protagonist, hence emotionally involved, however utterly stupid the environment or weak the plot.
Since some viewers or (I presume) paid reviewers have lionized this "film", please note the following:
1. Though the human race sees itself doomed because of the sudden infertility of its women (now that requires a simplistic mind), at no point can the script allow the word CLONE to be mentioned. We're a long way from Jurassic Park here - unable to even clone one of our own species in year 2027 or so.
2. Serious reviewers refer to the "fascist" state the protagonists are fleeing. What isn't mentioned is that our heroic dummies have transit papers and can legally exit - that is, till a group of violent illegals attacks them near the border and later their driver kills two traffic cops in cold blood. Yes, murderers on the run can understandably view policemen and straight citizens as fascists. But the reviewers? (Well, if they haven't thought of the "clone" word, who knows what's going on in their minds).
3. The film never shows us the Human Project, the land of deliverance our heroes are risking their lives to reach. Thus we have no clear vision of what they're striving for, nor understand why it exists. Shakespeare's The Tempest (et alia) need not depict the trials of London life to its spectators - they know it all too well. The play instead depicts the island - the land sheltered from all that. In this film, we're shown a world we all see clearly enough developing around us - and then superimposes onto is a non-sensical script.
4. The "fascist" soldiers engaged in a firefight with insurrectionists halt their fire to allow free passage to our heroine "Kee" and her baby - so stunned are they at the birth and so determined that nothing harm her or the child. Given that fact, what was the point to all the senseless action? And how great were the anti-fascists (I suppose) who only think of themselves and would have killed Kee at their first opportunity?
5. Some reviewers have seen "Mexico versus U.S." as some hidden motif to this junk film. I fail to see that. For instance, some of the illegals are Slavic. Apparently, Poland, Slovenia, etc., have been overwhelmed by in-migrations from the east, Turkestan, etc., causing their indigenous Slavic populations to flee their homelands. Yes, there is an implied similarity, in that unbridled inflow can result in the formation of non-integrated ghettos, and by extension, whole countries can become transformed into Bosnias. But, in this apocalyptic picture, presumably Mexico, too, is overwhelmed - though they have had tighter control over in-migration than has the US (thus slower economic growth - being just what they want)- to protect the rights of the criollos, who irrationally enough want nothing more than to leave their country but keep foreigners out. Just read Semarnat's (the Mexican Ministry of the Interior and Natural Resources) agendas and notes, posted on the Internet - for instance, documenting that the Zapotecs and Miztecs have been at war over "their" natural resources now for 500 years (per Semarnat), now using machine guns instead of spears, and are unlikely to ever change, unless they move out of the country. Obviously, neither group would be welcomed in by the millions of Mayans in the south, nor by the Masahuelas more to the north, etc., while the "Spanish" leaders of the country would love to be rid of them. In other words, Mexico already faces this demographic Beelzebub at its day-to-day domestic level.
Obviously, there is a superabundance of potential material for developing a more coherent apocalyptic view of the future - just read the newspapers.
I would score this film a minus-8, but I believe 1 is the lowest IMDb permits, sadly. And, BTW, if reviewers had simply told me in advance that this is an empty-headed action thriller, and rated it two stars out of five, I might have accepted it as a silly time-killer for a rainy day. In the end, the reviewer hype is the greatest villain - both to me and to a director who needs clearer guidance if his work's ever to improve.