Aside from meditations on fatherhood and family, there wasn’t much I found to like about this movie.

Though I would usually hesitate to spend an entire review comparing one movie to another, in the case of “City of Men” it is completely necessary to set the record straight. The reason this movie is even showing in the States is due to the monumental success of its claimed predecessor, “City of God.” Unfortunately, these films have little in common besides setting and title.

Following the critical acclaim and box office success of the 2002 masterpiece “City of God,” a television series aired in Brazil which followed the lives of two boys growing up in the “favelas” (slums) of Rio de Janeiro. The series, titled “City of Men,” earned rave reviews and was praised as a worthy spin-off of the popular film, which explored similar issues of poverty, drug abuse and crime, as well as the difficulty people face when attempting to break the cycle.

The two main characters from the series, Ace (Douglas Silva) and Wallace (Darlan Cunha), are the main focus of this new film, also titled “City of Men.”

The film focuses on the lives of these young men as they strive to come to terms with adulthood and attempt to unravel the truth behind the absence of their fathers. The film does make some interesting observations about the role of fathers in a society, and the transformation of Ace’s relationship with his own young son is both intriguing and honest. In a world where every day is a fight to survive, the bonds between families seem that much more integral.

Aside from meditations on fatherhood and family, there wasn’t much I found to like about this movie. Perhaps my expectations regarding the connection to “City of God” disabled me from taking this movie at face value.

But if one film is going to use the success of another to gain attention, it better be worthy of that attention. Everything to be loved about “City of God” seems to be absent in this superficial display of clichéd action and predictable plot turns.

The writers give us no reason to care about the plights of the characters, the cinematographers nearly turn the landscape of Rio into common beach scenery, and the documentary-style direction so perfectly utilized in “City of God” seems to hide sloppy gun battles in an attempt to seem comparable. Simply put, this movie seems to steal every trick from “God” in all the wrong ways.

In all fairness, the gal who accompanied me to this flick enjoyed it thoroughly, as she hadn’t yet caught “City of God.” So I suppose my recommendation is, if you haven’t seen “God,” check out “Men.”

But if you’ve seen the light and are looking for another religious experience, forget about it. This one is all too mortal.

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