Film Reviews by SB

I found this to be an incoherent film, with very little storyline. It is more a series of opinions. Whilst I would not necessarily disagree with some of those opinions, this is not what I am renting films for. This was promoted as a supposedly "epic science-true-fiction thriller set in a dystopian near-future". I would strongly assert that this is neither a faithful nor useful summary of the content of this film. It is certainly not a 'thriller' in any conventional meaning of that word, nor what the film is about.

I would further add that I was initially surprised by the film's short duration of eighty three minutes, but I can now see why its duration was so short - it basically had little narrative content and nothing to offer nor say.

What a waste of talent and resources. This was superficial nonsense with no credible storyline, just repetitive encounters with instantly aggressive creatures. The only positive thing I can say about this film was that the depiction/animation of the 'dinosaurs' was impressive. Regrettably, that alone was not sufficient to make this a passable, let alone an enjoyable watch.

The storyline was inconsistent with no credible continuity. There may have been acceptable segments to the film (hence 2*), but they were neither consistent nor developed in a meaningful and engaging way.

A ludicrously stupid film, which got worse as it went on.

It contained a brief, and marginally interesting, discussion of the meaning and relevance of religious belief, but beyond that the storyline was absurd. The nadir of this execrable junk was the scene in which emaciated detainees were seen in cages in the basement of the "heretic's" house. Moreover, did he really spend time each day feeding and 'messing' them out? This seemed a very unlikely character trait of the 'heretic'!

In summary, I cannot think of any redeeming feature to this ridiculous film.

I put this film onto my list purely because of the director's name, Mike Leigh, whom I have always held in high regard.

However, I found the constant moans and complaints from the leading character in each and every scene rather tiresome. I stuck with the film for about 30 minutes to see whether there was any character development coming along. Regrettably, it was not discernable at that stage, and I stopped the film.

My rule of thumb is that any film which I need to stop merits just 1 star.