Noah Kross (Nicolas Cage) and Rachel Weller (Sarah Lind) in The Humanity Bureau.
I always find it interesting to look at the world we live in and when there is a movie that comes out that is based on the future. Especially when you get close to when that future film has taken place. Great examples are The Purge which takes place in 2022, Soylent Green which also takes place in 2022, and Blade Runner which takes place in 2019. My point is, we like to see if the events actually come about, even in a joking manner. Considering how things on Earth currently have been going, it will be interesting to see if the events of The Humanity Bureau come to pass, even just a sliver of it.
It’s the year 2030, and global warming and economic recession have turned a majority of the American Midwest into a deserted wasteland. In order to combat this, a government agency called the Humanity Bureau was born. Its purpose is to exile members of society that they deemed unproductive and banish them to a colony called New Eden. Humanity Bureau caseworker, Noah Kross (played by Cage) is investigating a case appeal by single mother Rachel (played by Sarah Lind) and son Lukas (played by Jakob Davies). Kross learns the truth of what New Eden actually is and decides to protect Rachel and Lukas from Kross’s boss, Adam Westinghouse (played by Hugh Dillon).
Noah Kross (Nicolas Cage) in The Humanity Bureau.
As I said before, when movies take place in the future actually reach that time frame, we like to revisit those movies and compare if those films got it right. Obviously, we haven’t been eating people like in Soylent Green and we don’t have a lot of the technology that is showcased in Bladerunner, but with something like global warming, The Humanity Bureau does kind of hit a little closer to home. However, we won’t know for sure until we get there.
Beyond that, this film is very much a cut-and-paste Nicolas Cage thriller. Cage’s character gets invested in a woman for some reason, goes against his work to protect her, and gun fights and car chases ensue. The CGI in this film is not the greatest, especially the green screen behind Cage while he is driving. Because of its generic nature overall and the uneventful acting and plot, it will rank pretty low on the Nic Gauge. However, the kind of social commentary on global warming does give it a slight leg up from some others, so it sits in the middle of “Terrible”.
