The Humanity Bureau

This film is better than I expected. The story is quite suspenseful, and I find the characters engaging and sympathetic.

In the near future, America is devastated by evironmental and economic disasters. Noah Kross (Nicolas Cage) is an agent of the Humanity Bureau, a government agency which determines whether a citizen is productive or not. He is sent to evaluate the farm of Rachel Weller and her son Lucas. The farm is barren and Kross decides to send them to the relocation center. When he gives them a break, his superior Adam Westinghouse (Hugh Dillon) seeks to stop them all.

It seems like the filmmakers conceived of a dystopian world but failed to create a compelling story within it. This is another Cage special. It should be a warning sign for any of his recent movies. If he thinks the script is great, there is no doubt that something is wrong with it. The big reveal reminds me of Soylent Green. In fact, I'd rather have Soylent Green. This is generally cheap, inferior in every way, and lacking intensity. Cage is going through the motion. This is a small Canadian sci-fi indie trying to hit above its weight and failing.

It seems many of the movie greats have become straight to DVD fodder now. They have all gone down the Lance Henriksen, Ron Perlman, John Cusack route and I am very sad to say we have to add Nick Cage to the list of has beens. Is it because they are too old? Well, No I certainly don't think so; Nick and John Cusack both seem to be dying their hair with boot polish these days but at least Nick hasn't had too many face lifts like John Cusack (seriously have you seen him in CELL & SINGULARITY - He looks like a woman). Nick looks half decent for a guy in his 50's so why why why are they not being offered decent roles?

This was really cheap from the very opening scene with the drone next to his car it looked so bad it wasn't even good enough to appear in a home made video. The cars were supposed to be smartphone computer controlled and it is supposed to be the future but they were all ordinary cars with nothing scifi about them except the Humanity logo - very, very poor show old chep!

The movie lurched from one cheap location to another as a different reviewer pointed out quite correctly to save money obviously. The guy with the eye patch - what can i say but cringe, cringe, triple cringe!!!

The acting was wooden and plodding as though they were all just picking up a cheque and the artistic integrity mattered not. The story really was like a retread of an old tired cliché and the poor effects just made the whole thing seem like another pointless exercise. I though singularity was poor but this is actually worse.

Scifi channel movies are better than this - if that doesn't give you the SP then nothing will!

I guess when the movie came out the reviewers thought it was ridiculous. Today is a different story given the tings our government has been doing recently. Today, it is totally believable.

This feels a little retro: think Soylent Green. The story is the point here, and the descent of humanity following it's devaluation by a government that no longer cares. It is exactly what it seems to be and it isn't pretending to be anything else.