I just finished watching Children of Men, which I’ve heard nothing but good things about. … it did not live up to my expectations.
I found the characters to be wafer thin, the main idea poorly explored and unexplained, the plot contrived and trite. The whole movie felt like a chain of cliches. In my view, it is not a good movie. … So then I’m a bit puzzled as to why it is so highly rated. I mean, different people have different tastes - but I’m now doubting that someone would really call the movie a ‘masterpiece’ or anything like that. I find the contrast between what I heard about it and what I experienced to be quite bizarre.
So I’m curious about what other people think of it here - outside of reviews on popular websites. I’d like to know if people do still say that it is a great movie. If you do like it, you don’t have to justify why or say what was good about it if you don’t want to. I’m content to accept that different people have different tastes. I’m really just curious whether or not there is a mismatch between online reviews and opinions on Lemmy. There’s certainly a mismatch with my own opinion!
As others have stated, the world building does a lot of heavy lifting in that movie where the explicit chsracterisation is perhaps weaker. The movie is not really supposed to be a character study, it is, like many sci-fi stories, about a hypothetical future and the extrapolation and exploration of humanity in that new world. The characters are there to help move the plot along and expose us to the events and interactions that take place, rather than as deep and nuanced people.
The cinematography is really spectacular and, even just from a technical perspective, totally mindblowing. The long shots convey chaos and tension in a way not many films had done before (or since) and I found them to be wholly immersive. I used to watch this movie a lot in a formative time of my life and it is still one of my favourites but I can totally understand why it didn’t resonate with you if you didn’t like the premise and were left cold by the characterisation. I would guess it just isn’t your kind of movie, which is totally fine.