Great film, but stupid idea

Rating: 8/10 (24 May 2007)

I really enjoyed this film, but I found its basic premise quite mad.
The story makes a compelling narrative,Clive Owen was excellent as Theo and the dystopic world a few years ahead of us was brought to the screen with wit and intelligence. The vision of a world that has fallen into endless, violent conflict, like the current Middle East writ large, was a powerful political point in itself.
However, the initial premise of the film seems to me totally perverse. Given that planet Earth is in fact overburdened with a global population of 6,000 million humans and that we are wrecking the environment, polluting the seas, driving other species to extinction, etc, as a result, it is a lunatic idea to posit a world where human population is in critical decline. Talk about burying one's head in the sand! The only person who could fully endorse the film's crazy premise (and the implication that we should all be as prolific as possible) is the pope! (which might explain the hero's name, Theo .. as in theological ... except that the underpopulation premise is completely illogical).