This is not a good movie. It certainly appears like it’s a good movie. It’s got good direction, a good cast and crew, excellent cinematography, and plenty of drama…but it’s missing one huge piece: a story that’s interesting.

This review contains spoilers, which doesn’t really matter, since the plot summaries you read pretty much sum up the entire story, so don’t worry about being spoiled here.

The plot is that women have become infertile (and no one knows why). This terrorist group known as the “Fish” have found a pregnant girl and they’re trying to transport her to a safe place. Enter Clive Owen, who is apparently the ex-husband of the terrorist group, who is asked to help out, and ends up having to do all the work by himself.

I don’t really mind that we don’t know why women have become infertile. That’s not the problem. The problem with this movie is that I just don’t give a damn about the girl carrying the baby or that they’re trying to save her (and not just because she’s a bad actor).

A lot of movies use humor to get you to care about the characters. This movie does the same, but the jokes are bad. Seriously…a “pull my finger” joke? The fart jokes in Y Tu Mama Tambien were much better. Yes, lets have this lovable character with bad jokes and then kill him so you feel sorry for him. And make sure he doesn’t leave his house…doesn’t even try to hide. Where’s the fun in that? Oh, and did anyone notice how the road changed from the start of the movie when Clive Owen went to visit him to how suddenly there was this perfect lookout point later in the movie where he can see him die? Jesus Christ that’s forced.

And did you notice that they killed off Julliane Moore right when she was doing the “yuck it up in front of the camera to make the people love you” act? Yes…of course. Even at the end when Clive Owen died they had to actually take 15 seconds to give him a bit of personality so you liked him. What a pattern.

This movie just has no direction. It’s going nowhere. So what if they found a girl with a baby? Does that “save” mankind? We don’t even really know what’s going on because none of it is explained. If you’re going to try to make me believe this kid is going to make the world a better place then don’t just tell me. It’s like trying to sell me on the bible. Prove it happened. Prove anything in that book happened…and when you can, I’ll believe in Children of Men, too.