Finally a movie this year worth every penny

Rating: 10/10 (21 October 2006)

In brief, a ground-breaking work worth watching more than once. One of the best movies I've ever seen and definitely the best Brit movie I've seen for decades.
Based on P.D. James' book and set in southern England, Children of Men depicts a bleak future in which no children have been born for 18years and humanity is on the brink of extinction. Through a series of encounters Clive Owen's character is subtly drawn into the midst of a group who harbor probably the world's only pregnant woman. The two protagonists then set off to find a legendary sanctuary at sea where they hope to change the fate of humanity.
Yes its bleak, and yes its depressing, but it gets under your skin and its one of those movies that later, out of the blue, you'll crave to see again. This movie is actually special in so many ways its hard to list them all. Alfonso Cuarón direction is reminiscent of Kubrik at his best (Oscar 1). More than just having watched this movie you feel you lived through it. The camera work and cinematography in general are simply brilliant (Oscar 2). You see the action from the viewpoint of an observer who is right in the thick of it without missing out on the peripheral action. It really makes you feel you were there and are actually remembering what happened. The whole movie is shot in a kind of twilight that feels like natural light and reinforces how real everything feels. A 21st century Citizen Kane.
Whoever designed the sets loved their work (Oscar 3) because of the attention to every little detail. The Pink Floyd reference is a kind of icing on the cake. London is transformed into a vision of this bleak future so incredibly well it is hard to believe its all fiction. The trains and the various vehicles just fit in perfectly so you have no trouble believing that is what they are going to look like in this future.
The special effects are simply fantastic (Oscar 4). I just loved the subtle touches like the advertising on the side of the buses. In any other movie they'd force these things down your throat to show how clever they were, but here the special effects are done so well you don't even realize they are special effects unless you are looking for it.
Whoever did the explosions and coordinated the stunt work is a genius (Oscar 4). When you see so many explosions on TV it's easy to spot a fake Hollywood flame blaster. The ones in this movie are bang on.
There is this welcome trend in today's TV programs to have the dialog and action approach closely what people would actually do and say in real life (e.g. Entourage). This is the first full-length movie I've seen where the screenplay (Oscar 5) does the business.
After all the so so roles this is one in which Clive Owen really shines in the lead (Oscar 6). Michael Caine (Oscar 7) raises the bar as far as great acting goes.
The movie this reminds me of most is No Blade of Grass. Both get under your skin and both have a kind of inevitable quality about them in the sense that from one scene to the next things happen in a natural progression that makes the story truly harrowing. I can only hope that this movie wins an Oscar but somehow I think it will get short-changed primarily because it has mainly a British cast, but more likely because the material is not Oscar-compatible in the same way as Apocalypse Now. Ask any hundred movie buffs which they remember, Kramer vs Kramer or Apocalypse Now. Enough said. If it does win, I'll be 3 for 3.