Director: Alfonso Cuarón, 15, 2006

Stars: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Caine

Out to buy on DVD

London, 2028: life sucks. The human race is infertile, its youngest citizens are in their teens, the schools lie deserted and the Government has taken to issuing suicide pills to its increasingly despondent citizens.

Cuarón’s gloriously gloomy adaptation of the P.D. James novel follows the efforts of a mooching civil servant (Owen) to protect the only pregnant woman on the planet. Its decaying, Blade Runner-style spaces are explored in long, unbroken shots — a bravura scene, filmed entirely from inside a moving car, is the subject of the sole documentary. Like David Beckham, it sometimes embarrasses itself when it opens its mouth. But even a clunky script can’t hamstring the most hauntingly realised dystopia since Twelve Monkeys.

Mix all this in with some tremendous action sequences and you have a film that, you suspect, the producers thought covered all bases. In truth, the uneven script and tone touch them all but cover none.

DVD extras Audio commentary from McKay, Ferrell and Reilly, deleted and extended scenes, Ferrell featurette, gag reel

Editor's choice

• Are Glasvegas the new Oasis?
• Proms Podcast with Stephen Hough
• Vote for musical perfection