In 2027 as humankind faces the likelihood of its own extinction a disillusioned government agent agrees to help transport and protect a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea where her childs birth may help scientists to save the future of mankind. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 09/09/2008 Starring: Clive Owen Michael Caine Run time: 110 minutes Rating: R
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Dull - - I walked out Comment: The movie tries to be Very Relevant And Topical by littering the scenery with terrorists and mistreated immigrants. The director obviously took a how-to-film-a-bleak-dystopia course at a community college, so the mise-en-scene is properly gray and gritty. But the movie is enough of a hack job, the premise dull and the characters hollow, that my internal alarm "this movie is never going to get anywhere" started ringing really loud after ten minutes. When that happens I give it ten more minutes to show some promise. It didn't. *click*
Customer Rating: Summary: Devoid of worthy substance Comment: If you are a 12-year-old know-it-all, an addle-brained leftist or just simple, you'll probably think this movie is all that and a bag of chips.
If you have ever given the weighty issues of the day a moment's true consideration, however, you'll find yourself quickly losing patience with this screed. This is a worthless bit of tripe. It is anti-human and anti-civilization. It is truly abhorrent.
That it was well received indicates nothing more than the shocking degree that self-loathing has overtaken the human experience.
Customer Rating: Summary: A Classic Dystopian Film. Sadly underappreciated Comment: I remember seeing some previews for this film, and thinking that it looked interesting. I'm a big Clive Owen fan, and aside from what I saw in the trailer, I didn't really know much about it. Had never read the book, hadn't seen any promo for it aside from the aforementioned trailer.
As I was watching it I found myself realizing I was watching something special. I viewed it on the train ride from the east coast to the West coast, and was thoroughly captivated and drawn into this well made film.
Clive Owen is great in this, as is just about everyone in here. How this film got overlooked for Best Picture is beyond me. Three of the best films of 2007 were all made by Spanish Directors (Children of Men, Pans Labyrinth and Babel), and in my opinion Children of Men was definitely given the shaft when it came to Oscar time, only being nomimated for screenplay and cinematography, winning neither.
If you like good movies that are intelligently made, and have a lot of replay value, buy this movie. You won't be sorry.
Customer Rating: Summary: Possibly the best SF movie in a decade Comment: I really can't think of a better science fiction movie in the last decade. It isn't about the standard story of how we bring about our own demise, or the immediate aftermath. In fact, we don't even know why people stop having children. Instead, we look at the world twenty or so years from now, and see how people have learned to deal with it.
What really makes this a superb movie is the way in which the story is told. Long, single shots make this a beautiful movie in its own right. Most things are shown, not told, and whenever I watch it I see something new (watch for the worn out London Olympics 2012 sweatshirt!). Technology has progressed in a believable way, and is there not to show off the latest in special effects but to draw you in to the realism. Each little thing sums up to an amazing movie.
Every time I watch this movie, I imagine how it might have been as done by another director. And every time, I'm very, very thankful. Customer Rating: Summary: A medieval miracle tale cast in the year 2027, with a fine performance by Clive Owen Comment: I suspect that if one agrees with what appears to be director Alfonso Cuaron's premise, that humankind's basest instincts for selfishness, fouling its own nest, violence toward each other and the acceptance of authoritarianism when faced with fear can be met by the redemptive power of hope and love, then one will accept Children of Men as a film of emotional power.
For me, Children of Men is a movie in which Cuaron tries to stuff in far too many actions. He seems to aiming for the kind of allegory that can change the way we feel about our lives, but he winds up making many of the compromises that movies force upon some directors as they find themselves with big budgets to work with and the need to sell tickets to justify the investment.
The story, as has been pointed out by others, is one big Macguffin. It's 2027 and civilization has fallen to its knees. The world is nothing but chaos, terrorism, a rotting environment and death. Britain has managed to survive as a nation state by becoming a horrendous dictatorship, needing immigrants for menial work and turning them into outcasts, periodically rounding them up along with the fugees, the refugees from the world's chaos who managed to slip past Britain's barriers. Concentration camps are filling up, laws are enforced with ferocity, there are no civil rights and the government has become the greatest killer of them all. In exchange, the British have order.
And it has been 19 years since a baby was born, anywhere in the world. Humankind has mysteriously become sterile. The point of the movie is that a frightened young woman is discovered to be pregnant. In an instant she becomes the center of the movie...will she be used by rebels to try to undermine the government? Will she find a way to escape by sea to some almost mythical group of scientists who are searching for peace and an answer to humankind's infertility? Will she and her baby be killed? Will they survive? It seems her only hope will be a burned-out, used-up functionary who once tried to change things, years ago. From the time this man first meets this scared girl-child and realizes that she's pregnant, to the end of the movie in a small rowboat waiting to see if mankind has a future, we're on a medieval journey through the terrors of hell as the girl and her protector deal with hatred, avarice, brutality, imprisonment, death and war.
The question for me was: Is all this Macguffining well done enough to be interesting? If it is, is the story itself worth it?
You'll have to make up your own minds. Simply as a story, I think whatever success Children of Men has had has depended on Clive Owen. He's the protector and he's in just about every scene. Owen is a fine actor. Unlike many actors who have made it to the top, he is most effective reacting. He seldom indulges in flashy heroics in his movies and doesn't do so here. At first, he's uncertain, confused and cautious. When he commits himself to the journey, he doesn't have all the answers, just a willingness to take advantage of opportunities and to risk his life because he's come to believe in what he is doing. It's a first-rate performance.
But then we have Julianne Moore as a rebel leader and Owen's former wife. In my view, she's too big a name for the size of the part, and the part is too large for the story. Michael Caine has a juicy role as Owen's older friend. He's gotten up to look like Brent Spiner in Independence Day. Caine does a nice job, but both he and Moore infect the movie with "star" presence. I think both roles would have been better for the movie if played by little known but good actors. Chiwetel Ejiofor is excellent as a dedicated and even ruthless rebel leader. But the movie only needs Owen, and he delivers.
Cuaron, in this medieval miracle tale, has given us a great look at the hell humanity has made for itself. At times, for me, he lingers on and expands this view the better to sell tickets. The whole extended urban battle at the end of the movie seemed to go on and on for no great purpose than to show us how a well-crafted urban war can be presented. Most of the movie's horrors, in fact, are so carefully framed and photographed, so well and ingeniously lit, that I was always aware I was watching a movie. Most movie-ish of all was that heavenly voice wafting down on us as humanity's redemption is resolved by a young mother and her baby.
This is one of those movies that, for me, needs to be taken seriously simply because a talented director with serious themes has made it. In this era of endless comic book movies and films with the old ultra violence, Curaon deserves our respect. So does Clive Owen.
Try Owen in Croupier. To see Julianne Moore at her finest, try Vanya on 42nd Steet. And for a taste of near sighted ur-dystopia not to be missed, read David Macaulay's Motel of the Mysteries.
