Highly accomplished

Rating: Null/10 (24 September 2006)

Children of Men is the best film I have seen at the cinema this year. I didn't expect it to be so good, but it more than surpassed my expectations. The story concerns a world in which fertility has mysteriously ended, rendering the human race to a fate of extinction within 50 years or so once everybody has finally died. Set in 2027, the world is a bleak and violent place, in which military rule plays a large part in everyday life as law and order have collapsed and terrorism grows. Clive Owen, a former peace activist who has turned to fags and booze to ease his pain at earth's sufferings, is reluctantly drawn into an underground battle between terrorists out to promote immigrant rights and the authorities keen to persecute all opposition. When he discovers an immigrant woman who is pregnant, he realises he must help her find the 'human project', an undefined but much-hoped for scheme to save humanity. Cue lots of chases and thrills as he battles violent terrorists on the one hand and trigger happy troops on the other. Along the way, we meet Michael Caine, sporting a silly wig and seeming to portray a cardy slut. Children of Men certainly has its lighter moments and is worthy of great recognition. Go and see it!