Enthralling craftsmanship

Rating: 9/10 (23 November 2007)

While I'd heard good buzz about this film, I managed to miss it until recently. My loss.
CHILDREN OF MEN actually manages to re-validate science fiction, a genre I would have sworn was dying. The story and the messages here are grim and entirely believable.
I suspect Universal had a hard time marketing this movie; its visual brilliance comes from the world created in the story, and few of the visuals would look like much taken out of context for a trailer or a clip on a late-night talk show. This world is amazingly--and VERY convincingly--rendered.
There is a great deal to like about this movie. The premise is dead-simple, but chilling: what if for some reason all humanity became infertile? And, given our abuse of ourselves and our environment, how implausible is that premise, anyway? That this crisis triggers xenophobia on a massive scale is no great surprise.
One point I found intriguing is the complete lack of "sides"; the rebels and the government both behave abhorrently. The story is thoughtful, and quite moving. This is a story that compares to sci-fi classics like "1984" and "Farenheit 451".
Performances are all very good. Michael Caine actually immerses himself in a character, for once, instead of wrestling it to the ground. I hadn't much liked Clive Owen in the other movies I'd seen him (he was badly miscast in SIN CITY), but he is fantastic here.