A poor man's dystopia action/thriller

Rating: 1/10 (14 December 2007)

It's 2027 in Children of Men. Through advertisements, commercials and newscaster innuendo we learn that civilization has broken down on a global level. Only England somehow manages to 'battle on' and is suffering from large streams of illegal immigrants because of this. They the government, deal with it harshly; killing or deporting them as soon as they are rounded up and put in cages. We also learn that the entire world has become infertile; no children have been born in eighteen years. No one seems to know why and the hinted causality of growing pollution, global warming, and food manipulation as a reason for the infertility makes little to no sense.
It is here where the logic in the film is starting to buckle, which is shortly after the opening credits. For the human race to fully stop being fertile all of a sudden, something more catastrophic and acute is needed. Also it would not explain why animals would be able to procreate amidst this eco disaster or why the term 'cloning' somehow seems to have vaporised from the dictionary. Obviously the existence of something acute did not fit writer/director Cuaron's agenda because it would ultimately lose the film's connection with the present world. Of course, if Cuaron had stayed true to the book, the problem would not have been so obvious. Too bad he (admittedly) never even read it.
All this hardly matters because Children of Men comes off the shelf of the so-called thought-provoking movies. Which in this case means that its OK to INvoke some thought, but surely not to get too carried away with it. Judging by the way the script is handled, presenting the scarce plotpoints through ham-fisted explanatory dialog, I don't think this movie was meant to be thought provoking at all. At best it's a silly reminder of things we learn in school at age 10 and up or see in the news every time we turn the telly on.
The film itself plays out like a big formulaic chase in which our protagonists, mainly Theo (Clive Owen) and a black pregnant woman, 'mysteriously' named Kee (Claire Hope Ashity), are chased down by a terrorist group named The Fishes who want the soon to be born child for themselves in order tocuddle it? Their motivations remain a complete mystery. The quest leads Kee and Theo through England's countryside, which is kind of a plod, also for the viewer. Fortunately we can listen to a jarring and bloated soundtrack that accompanies the bleak and unappealing shaky visuals the viewer is presented. The plot of the movie seems to revolve around getting Kee and her later to be born baby to another group called the Human Project that is not sure to even exist. But if they do exist, we can be sure that the human race, thanks to one little squealing baby human, will be saved.or something.
Children of Men is a clumsy experiment gone terribly wrong. Director Alfonso Cuaron is know to despise too much exposition in films and if he is referring to the 'Hollywood way' of telling stories, I would somewhat agree with him. But Cuaron fails to properly compensate for the lack of exposition in the way the story is unfolding and scenes are constructed. He compensates by making the dialog throughout the entire movie so unnaturally explanatory that it is far too obvious that he is just informing the viewer. Being taken by the hand through every reason and meaning of the plotpoints like a little kid is pretty infuriating. And this doesn't just hamper the acting by otherwise capable actors, it also ruins any character development in the movie which in turn is not compensated for. Furthermore the movie is pompous and monotonous with its one-sided political overtone. It is all the same evasive when it comes to answering, or even questioning the issues it nonetheless throws up. The symbolism and churlish nods to contemporary issues is far too conspicuous and highly annoying as such (The one captured immigrant they allow to be heared, speaks German!, yeah, let's deport a former Nazi...seriously people, who writes this stuff?) And the logic of the plot that a single baby/person will be able to save the world in a movie that is supposed to have a serious message, is, to put it kindly, ludicrous, puerile and as original as a beer commercial.
Although there is some fancy camera-work and editing in especially the last segment of the movie (a Kubrick homage?), I would not go as far as recommending this movie for just that bit alone as others have suggested. I think it is tragic that the talents of an artdirector like Lubezki were wasted on a bleak, rather predictable and messy film with zero likable characters, a questionable script and a too obvious political viewpoint which is shoved up the arse of the viewer over and over again. The film leaves out so much backstory and tries to compensate for this with so many minuscule silly details that even a second or third watch will not help to really put all the pieces together because too many important and interesting ones were simply left in the box.
Although the attempt is somewhat admirable and despite the absurd high rating, not recommended at all.
3/10