Children of Men

April 16, 2007

Rated: R Runtime: 109 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I’m about to reach a point where if Hollywood directors/writers don’t stop trying to preach politics to me, I’m going to just quit watching movies all together. I’m sick and tired of all the subtle (and not so subtle) messages telling me that socialism is good and capitalism is evil; that war is never an answer to anything; that nations that claim to be based on freedom are actually just fascist oppressors. I’m SICK of it!

As you hopefully have surmised by now, Children of Men has been laced with a lot of left-wing political messages. To be fair, there are a lot of potential messages in this movie that are not on either side of the idealogical scale, but all the ones that do fit on the scale are all on the side that Lenin preferred.

But politics aside, is the movie any good? Actually, yes. The story itself is not one you see every day: in the year 2027 it has been 18 years since the last human was born. Women worldwide inexplicably become infertile, damning humanity to a long, slow death. Predictably, the social order of the world degrades and chaos begins to reign supreme. In the UK, however, they continue to stand tall and proud…or so the FASCIST capitalistic government would have you believe. In reality, the government is bombing civilians and blaming the “good” resistance groups which even director Alfonso Cuarón acknowledges will have their own bad seeds.

Theo Faron (Owen) is a low-level government bureaucrat who, like the millions of other human survivors, is just going through the motions of life. After nearly being blown up by one of the aforementioned “government” bombs, he is kidnapped by a resistance group lead by his ex-wife, Julian (Moore), who apologizes for the “ruse” and asks him to help her group escort a young woman to a secretive group of scientists who are reportedly working to “save” the world.

From here, the movie shifts gears and becomes a not-so-original ‘desperate run for life while caught between warring factions’ flick. Even here, however, it manages to stand out from the pack via some spectacular cinematography reminiscent of the beginning of Saving Private Ryan.

The casting in Children of Men is also rather commendable. Owen and Moore are suited to their roles and Michael Caine, as usual, steals all of his scenes. As well, relative newcomer Claire-Hope Ashitey is very credible as the young woman. The only glitch is Ejiofor who, given his talent, is very underutilized.

The biggest problem with the movie, politics aside, is the tone. All the good points mentioned above, put together, are only marginally able to overcome the hopelessness of everyone in the movie - INCLUDING the main characters. When your protagonist is lacking energy and bereft of any hope for the future, how can you expect the audience to really care what happens to him and the people around him? I mean, hell, I was contemplating slicing my OWN wrists by the time the credits rolled!

Add the distasteful politics into the mix and the end result is a very middle-of-the-road rating of 3 stars.

NOTE: If you watch this movie and are doubtful as to the political leanings, be sure to listen to the lyrics of the first two songs in the closing credits.

Posted by Alex | Filed Under 3 Stars, Action, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Claire-Hope Ashitey, Clive Owen, DVD, Drama, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, R, SciFi