Not great but definitely makes you think

Rating: 6/10 (30 July 2007)

It amuses me when reading the reviews for this movie  most of which appear to suffer from a bi-polarity disorder, i.e. they're either of the class 'brilliant, smashing, excellent, ' and other superlatives, or of the sort of 'appalling, bad, waste of time', etc. There are roughly three ways to assess a movie of the kind of CoM  that is either from an artistic point of view or from an intellectual point of view, or anything in between these extremes for that matter. Artistically inclined people will usually rely on what 'gut' feeling or 'impression' the movie gives them, whilst logically or intellectually inclined people will look for the 'great' message and will want to have an explanation for everything that happens. CoM is inclined not to provide either of those, or equally both, depending on your impressions and how much of the plot you wish to be explained or alternatively to be left for personal interpretation. My 'gut' feeling was that the scenery and atmosphere hit the target, in particular, the urban warfare scenes seemed pretty realistic (not that I have  thankfully - ever been in one). Special effects were brilliant in the reverse car chase (also explained in the additional features on DVD) but on the contrary, the escape scene with the car not starting is absolutely amateurish (e.g. Theo pushing a heavy car as if it is a pushchair - which after rolling off a hill, gets stuck in the mud and the next bit looking very much uphill; not to talk about sabotaging the other cars in a minute or so without drawing the attention of the terrorist guards). The terrorists are not always believable, and actually not because of 'why do they want the baby?' to which the answer is blatantly obvious, but because of their behaviour. E.g. why does Luke, who drives the car, seems like a nice guy, then kills two cops in cold blood, and later in the movie it seems that he also knew about the plot of killing Julian, hence he was very much aware that Rado was on the motorcycle. On the other hand, do we need answers to everything? I personally, don't. Thus  I enjoyed the movie because it made me think about how current societal problems could indeed develop into what this movie portrays. Of course there are a million other possible scenarios, and no single director will ever be able to cover them all. In summary, decent movie, not great; but did leave me with that 'gut' feeling ;-)