Code 46 Reviews

Ever since I saw ‘Butterfly Kiss’, I have been a fan of Michael Winterbottom and I have been following his work closely. However, since the guy is apparently a workaholic, he is quite over-productive, making an average of one movie every year. The positive thing is that you don’t have to wait very long for his following work to come out but the negative thing is that many of his movies are rather half-baked. I mean, so far I have seen 12 of his movies and none of them was bad but, to be honest, you can feel that if he had spent more time on his movies, they would have been better. This movie is a fine example. Indeed, even though it is basically a failure, it remains a very interesting failure nonetheless. Indeed, Winterbottom managed to create a fascinating futuristic world, albeit not really original, but there was still a spellbinding mood. Furthermore, Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton gave some really solid performances so you had all the ingredients to make a very good SF feature. Unfortunately, half-way through, the whole thing really lost some steam and it seemed that Winterbottom didn’t really know where to go with these intriguing characters. To conclude, even though I think it is another failure in Winterbottom ‘s spotty filmography, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I have never been a huge fan of science fiction. In general I find the genre big on ideas but lacking in character and substance. I was pleased to see Code 46 got the balance right. Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton combine their talents well to inject some drama into this complex futuristic tale. A lesser pair may not have had the same desired effect.