Not as good as expected.

Rating: 2/10 (19 January 2008)

I love sci-fi. Good sci-fi. This is not sci-fi, it's a war drama (to be shelved next to Full Metal Jacket) First let me tell you what I liked about the movie. The world is extremely well presented as desperate, morbid and hopeless. The contrast of the hope of a single baby is equally well presented and will make a grown man cry. And even I, a grown man, cried. It contains some of the most gut wrenching scenes of warfare turned into the most beautiful thing I have seen on film.
Too bad one or two scenes do not make a movie (at least for me).
Now for why I rated the movie so low. The story of Children of Men was nearly completely revealed in the trailers. There is virtually no character development, the story is pretty straight forward, and yet unbelievable at the same time. When I say "unbelievable" I mean several convergences of character paths were so improbably that, if it weren't for the intensity of the scenes, they would be exposed for what they are : "deus ex machina" story patches.
Moreover, the story is preachy about its anti-war, anti-immigration reform stance and makes it quite clear that if a disastrous, hopeless situation occurs those things would send mankind over the brink. It presents the terrorists not as the "good guys", but rather the "not so bad guys". Imagery from Abu Ghraib were directly duplicated and used in the background of some scenes.
A note on the DVD release: The extra interviews with the extreme left wing activists really rubbed me the wrong way and their simplistic view of the world didn't even measure up to the complexity posed by the film.