Much ado about little

Rating: 1/10 (11 May 2007)

Praise aplenty for Children of Men, yet even after a second viewing I still totally fail to see why.
The movie starts out well with depicting a world in chaos due to humanity seemingly being punished by being unable to procreate and no signs of handling this predicament well. England seems to cope relatively amply with the situation but is plagued by revolt against the fascist way the government maintains some form of order. Think refugee. This background should be enough for a compelling story to develop.
But between the uninspired dialog, which is basically plot driven, and the poor character development there is also very little story- and or plot development. With an overly use of the hand-held camera style the movie quickly turns into a chase the rabbit style of film with a lot of muddled action sequences which reminded me of first person-shoot-m-up's. Scattered throughout the bleak set pieces there are less than subtle comments on the world we live in today, presented to the viewer in a blunt tabloid style. They make absolutely no sense as to being in this chase/action movie.
This film simply lacks a heart and consistency in what it was meant to be. As a social drama it lacks character depth and a less obvious script. As a science fiction movie, it lacks science fiction. As a thriller it plods too much and again some character depth would have been nice for I truly couldn't care less for any of the characters.
I can only recommend this movie for some impressive editing of some of the action sequences near the end and parts of the cinematography. Beyond this, I'm still baffled at the praise this poorly scripted movie with its shallow messages, dramatic clichés and average acting has received.