Stop the madness..

Rating: 1/10 (17 January 2008)

It is hard to believe that the movie we saw tonight is the same as the one praised here on this website. Where is the intrigue? Where is the view of a world that is tormented with the knowledge of being barren? Where are the deep insights into a 'very possible future'? All I saw was a simple chase movie that was obviously done differently compared to what we are usually dished by the likes of Hollywood but also one that not for second convinced me. Worse yet, I can't remember the last time I saw a movie this fake and contrived.
Apart from the fact that no reasonable explanation is given for the whole ordeal of getting the child through the violence to a ghostlike organization other than that it provided some sort of subterfuge for shooting the battle-scenes, no credible reasons are ever given for Anything that happened on the screen. The same goes for the motivations of most of the characters in the movie.
Sure, most mainstream productions hit us over the head with exposition making such productions not very challenging to watch, but to simply reverse it and unaffectedly explain nothing is just the opposite side of the coin and equally insipid even if it was shot from a first person perspective. The fact that the audience has to dig with shovels to find a plausible story somewhere is what makes this a masterpiece? By God, I think not.
I think I speak for the four of us who saw this movie tonight that we were all totally underwhelmed considering the acclaim and current ranking of Children of Men. The acting felt labored, especially by Caine whom we adore, the script embarrassingly poor in places, nothing really profound or philosophical to sink your teeth in and the ending, if one could call it that, was unimaginative and completely devoid of any intelligence to it. But frankly, so was the whole movie, so ten stars for coherence.
We remain dumbfounded considering the praise of this clearly overbudgeted but all the same cheap effort and feel totally hoodwinked by the glorifying reviews.
Ann, Kate, Deirdre and Cathy