Children of Men [Blu-ray] Review
In many ways, "Children of Men" is a very typical futuristic thriller. It of course extrapolates the current worries of our time into a dystopian nightmare of tomorrow. World ravaged by terrorism, anti-terrorism, and global warming? Check. Shadowy, sem-fascist government? Check. Soulless capitalism relentlessly shilled in ubiquitous advertising? Check. Population stripped of dignity and basic compassion? Check. There is more than one reference to the war in Iraq, which will undoubtedly date this film in just a few years.
However, "Children of Men" manages to rise above this genre's cliches in several important ways. First, the most pressing problem is not one specifically related to the troubles of today: the world is dying because for some unknown reason, women can no longer have children. The film opens with the news that the youngest person on earth (18 years old) has died in a brawl.
Second, the film is only set about twenty years into the future, so while the there have been some technical advancements, the landscape looks largely the same. It's just different enough to be disquieting. The double decker buses of London are still there. It's just that now, those buses pass billboards that read, "Avoiding Fertility Tests is a Crime."
Most importantly, while this film does not break any ground in its genre, what it does, it does well. Other reviewers have complained that the film does not not make a tremendous amount of sense, and this is true. However, the film's main thrust is not a commentary on today's social moores. It is first and foremost a thriller, and we get just enough sense of what's going on to make us care, without getting bogged down in massive expositions on the hows and whys. We are told that the world is in a bad place, and we are drawn in with compelling cinematography, a fast-moving plot, and good acting.
I also found some of the final scenes involving Kee, the pregnant woman, quite moving, even more so because the film ends on a decidedly ambivalent note. Early on in the film, the hero says that even if scientists discovered the cure for infertility, it wouldn't help: the world's already gone to pot. And in fact, the movie does not even get that far. It's about saving ONE woman who is pregnant. Whether this will save the world is an open question. The film also does a good job of fleshing Kee out as a person, with an actual personality. I originally passed on this movie because I assumed that she would be treated as a precious, but essentially non-sentient vessel that holds The Antidote to the World's Troubles. While some characters in the film do see her as such, the viewers are allowed to experience her as a unique individual.
Final analysis: a very strong example of its genre. Not as imaginative as BladeRunner, not as satiric as Brazil, but 100x better than, say, Running Man. Definitely worth watching.
Children of Men [Blu-ray] Overview
No children. No future. No hope. In the year 2027, eighteen years since the last baby was born, disillusioned Theo (Clive Owen) becomes an unlikely champion of the human race when he is asked by his former lover (Julianne Moore) to escort a young pregnant woman out of the country as quickly as possible. In a thrilling race against time, Theo will risk everything to deliver the miracle the whole world has been waiting for. Co-starring Michael Caine, filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men is the powerful film Pete Hammond of Maxim calls “magnificent … a unique and totally original vision.”
Children of Men [Blu-ray] Specifications
Presenting a bleak, harrowing, and yet ultimately hopeful vision of humankind's not-too-distant future, Children of Men is a riveting cautionary tale of potential things to come. Set in the crisis-ravaged future of 2027, and based on the atypical 1993 novel by British mystery writer P.D. James, the anxiety-inducing, action-packed story is set in a dystopian England where humanity has become infertile (the last baby was born in 2009), immigration is a crime, refugees (or "fugees") are caged like animals, and the world has been torn apart by nuclear fallout, rampant terrorism, and political rebellion. In this seemingly hopeless landscape of hardscrabble survival, a jaded bureaucrat named Theo (Clive Owen) is drawn into a desperate struggle to deliver Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), the world's only pregnant woman, to a secret group called the Human Project that hopes to discover a cure for global infertility. As they carefully navigate between the battling forces of military police and a pro-immigration insurgency, Theo, Kee, and their secretive allies endure a death-defying ordeal of urban warfare, and director Alfonso Cuaron (with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki) capture the action with you-are-there intensity. There's just enough humor to balance the film's darker content (much of it coming from Michael Caine, as Theo's aging hippie cohort), and although Children of Men glosses over many of the specifics about its sociopolitical worst-case scenario (which includes Julianne Moore in a brief but pivotal role), it's still an immensely satisfying, pulse-pounding vision of a future that represents a frightening extrapolation of early 21st-century history. --Jeff Shannon
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