A brilliant and disturbing vision of the future but lacking a few key story elements

Rating: 8/10 (11 January 2008)

Children of Men is very close to being one amazing film...a mind blowing experience. The cinematography is as brilliant as they say and as the Academy Awards bestowed on them. The characters are well done and the world they create is perhaps one of the very best in sci-fi movie history. I don't consider myself a dummy by any means especially when it comes to movies but the flaw with Children of Men was some explanation to the main story. I don't understand WHY Julian's people killed her and were trying to take the baby? I don't understand WHY they just didn't go to the police, soldiers or government? Why would anyone want to stop this baby? They don't explain why the human project are the only people they trust with this baby. Without these key questions being answered their entire focus and thus the entire point of the film is somehow lost. You're watching these daring escapes, and nail biting chases and battles and you just keep thinking...why don't they just bring the baby to the authorities because this is a good, life saving, mankind changing event? They just don't explain it and I think it's a huge misstep for the creators of the film and stopped it from being a 10/10 for me.
Clive Owen puts his brooding demeanor to perfect use as the disenchanted, former protester Theo Faron. Faron's back story and his reason why he ends up where he does unfolds throughout the film and he's an intense well written character and Owen definitely embodies the character and really makes it his own. He's the perfect anti-hero for a film of this type. Michael Caine is superb as Faron's best friend (perhaps relative of some kind.) Caine's character is the exact definition of what a hippie would be to us today and he's terrific. Clearly smart, trying to make something better of the world around him and dealing with his acoma'd partner/wife/sister? Many questions not answered. Julianne Moore is decent in a small part as the head of a rebel organization and Owen's ex-wife.
The real magic of the film is not just one performance or one character but the combination of the film making and the brilliant cinematography that I mentioned before. This is a world unlike anything I've ever seen on screen because it looks so real and feels so dark and gritty and believable and the people you see in cages "Illegal immigrants" look scared, hungry, volatile and it just sucks you into this world and you have so many questions and unfortunately very few of them get answered. Perhaps by watching the film numerous times and picking apart some of the stories people tell you could fabricate some history but I wanted the film to explain more to me and it doesn't. There is so much detail to the posters in the background, or something on Television that it is the type of film you could watch again and again and take something different from it every time. The battle scenes are just brilliant and so well done and they are no holds barred without any censoring or holding back. For a sci-fi fan you might find this almost too serious and thought provoking and, like me, you might want more out of it. But for those looking for something off beat, and different and diversely intelligent with a very honest look at society then Children of Men will likely blow you away. No matter how you look at it, you'll be stunned at it's depth and honesty. 8/10