Excellent

Rating: 9/10 (10 January 2007)

Children of Men, loosely based on the novel "The Children of Men" by P.D. James, combines an intense depiction of a dystopian future with an avant-garde visual style. The director, Alfonso Caurón, who helmed such diverse films such as Great Expectations, Y Tu Mama Tambien, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, shows yet again that he can tackle any genre.
The film stars Clive Owen (Closer, Sin City) as Theo, a bureaucrat in 2027 London., who has refrained from human contact with everyone except for his hippy friend named Jasper, played by Michael Caine. We enter the film with news of the youngest person on earth dying, who is a little more than eighteen years old. It is understood that women are now infertile, but the reason for this disturbing phenomenon is not really explained. The characters in the film don't know either, creating the prevalent chaos. The plot gets moving when it is discovered that a young refugee, Kee is pregnant, and she needs Theo's help to get her to a group of scientists called The Human Project, in order to keep her baby safe.
Overpowering this compelling story is the amazingly impressive technical achievement, aided by Caurón's long time director of photography, Emmanuel Lubezki, and the art direction team. Like Cauron's Y Tu Mama Tambien, Children of Men is shot almost entirely in hand-held, a technique movie-goers have a love it or hate it attitude towards. Caurón and Lubezki manage to pull off entire scenes in what appears to be a single shot, as well as a battle scene that runs over seven minutes long. This scene contains realistically decayed, massive buildings, as well as flawless staging of actors and extras. The result is that rather than looking like science fiction, the film feels as if it was shot on an actual warfront in the future with a hand-held camera.
It's astonishing that a film so interested in its technical merits really held its own acting-wise. Clive Owen is wonderfully dry, yet caring as the cynical Theo, and Caine is at perfection in a surprisingly comical, scene stealing role unlike we've ever seen him before. Yet it is Caurón that reveals himself as the real star of the film, with a virtuoso directing effort.
Children of Men will definitely find some viewers who feel it is simply incredible, as well as many detractors, consisting of those who feel the film left too many questions unanswered, especially with its abrupt ending. However, most will appreciate the flawless technical accomplishments (apart from a fake looking CGI baby) of the film regardless of ones opinion about how fulfilling the story was. Nevertheless, Children of Men is a gritty, compelling, and occasionally funny film that is imperative for any serious movie-goer to see.