Wonderful character development!

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Holy moly did I ever love this movie. Right after watching it I gave it a 10 on IMDb and bought the soundtrack. Which, strangely has a pretty low ranking despite a whole whack of glowing reviews with similar feelings to my own. To say I was pleasantly surprised would be a massive understatement. In the future everything is controlled by the governments and corporations, pretty familiar so far, right? We are told right away over a series of shots that seem like it's no the future at all, but right now. That, people with genetic compatibility is prohibited. We aren't told the repercussions but we know this is a big no no. Anything above 25% if I remember correctly is not a thing that is tolerated in this society. And then, it's kind of never brought up again. William Geld (Tim Robbins) goes to Shanghai to try and solve a problem for a corporation. Some "papeles" have been flagged with people who have fake IDs. Basically, these papeles are issued by the totalitarian are what allow people to travel to other places, and keep people outside of the cities in shanties out of the cities. William meets a woman named Maria while investigating and a really unique and interesting love story happens. I don't want to give much away but what follows is super compelling. The soundtrack is fantastic, the acting, cinematography, and script is just fantastic. The world is interesting and compelling over time. At first, everything doesn't seem like it's the future at all, and then slowly we are introduced to future tech and cultural things that make it clear that we are not in in the present. My favorite thing was that it seems as though everyone in this world has a short hand that mixes a bunch of different languages. They apologize and refer to boys and girls in Spanish in Shanghai, a young boy speaks french to his father in Seattle, some Chinese words are mixed throughout.Another thing is the concept of consensual viruses that alter people's minds. Code 46 infects everyone and forces them to do something specific, the main character has an empathy virus he uses to immediately discern things about people so long as they offer up something personal about themselves. It's a super neat concept.

The world is split between cities under totalitarian control and the desert outside where the poor without papers struggle to live. William Geld (Tim Robbins) is sent to Shanghai to investigate forged papers. Maria Gonzalez (Samantha Morton) works at a company creating the papers and is the prime suspect. Code 46 prohibits reproduction due to genetic similarities. He follows her and they start an affair.It feels a little like 'Blade Runner' with the language amalgam, futuristic dystopia, and dark ethical dilemmas. It is inferior by comparison. The movie is trying to be exotic simply by filming in these foreign locations. It fails to be futuristic. A little background CGI would go a long way. The ethical question is a little confused and messy. Honestly, I don't feel the romantic chemistry between William and Maria. I wonder if Maria is playing William or William is taking advantage of Maria. I'm simply not invested in their relationship.

I remember watching Code 46 accidentally in a theater shortly after it's release. It was substitute for another movie that a group i was with missed. Describing it afterwards as a low-budget SF drama was misleading but i had no better choice of words...Some years down the road, i've purchased the DVD and saw it again. Code 46 appeared much slower than i remembered. However, what impressed me again were the details with which the authors addressed the cultural, political and environmental changes in the near future: The cars are almost inaudible; You infect yourself with a virus that helps you learn a language; You need a visa to travel which looks like a bus ticket (even overseas) etc.There are some poetic elements that might spoil your fun, but they were presumably necessary to reinforce the authors' artistic standpoint.Overall this is a very good movie.

Code 46 is a disquieting science fiction love story with themes that explore the moral impacts of advances in biotechnology. In the not-so- distant future, a married man investigates a counterfeiter and ends up the perpetrator of an ethical crime.The film stars Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton together with Togo Igawa,Natalie Mendoza,Nabil Elouahabi,Om Puri and Jeanne Balibar. The movie is directed by Michael Winterbottom, with screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce. The soundtrack was composed by David Holmes under the name "Free Association".Set against the backdrop of a technologically advanced Shanghai, where people are only allowed to travel between countries with official passports called "papelles," the film charts the efforts of Seattle native William to get to the bottom of a contraband-papelle operation within the walls of a high-tech company that manufactures them. There he finds Maria, an enigmatic young woman who may or may not be selling the passports on the black market. William has a brief affair with Maria, which, despite his attempts to return home, causes him to become embroiled in an even bigger controversy in Shanghai.The film is a big disappointment despite having a talented cast in Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton. The viewer tend to get bored and probably less sympathetic and interested with the characters involved as they perform more like physically assembled beings from the laboratory rather than people with emotions. Aside from that,the premise is somewhat original in the sense it gives a person an aloof feeling especially with the characters involved namely William and Maria,we get to a point that we feel lack of empathy for both of them.I don't know if this was the purpose of the screenwriter but nevertheless,he should have made it a point to make the movie interesting and absorbing especially for the events that are about to happen and for the character involved in the story.Without this,the movie becomes a missed opportunity despite the fact that it could have been an intelligent science fiction that would have given a view of what the future of biotechnology in the years to come.