"Will the last one to die please turn the lights off?"

Rating: 7/10 (28 September 2006)

I had seen the trailer of Children of Men some time before it came out and heard some good reviews about the movie so I was hoping I would not be disappointed.
And I must say I wasn't. Overall, I found the film to be very moving and enjoyable(as much as a dystopian movie can be). Think Clive Oven's acting could be better but it was certainly intolerable. I just think he went too over the top with the "hopeless, uncaring and broken man" acting. Michael Caine was just perfect and the scenes he is in are easily the most enjoyable and positive scenes. Julianne Moore was also good although I did not expect her to be killed off so early in the movie.
I have not read the book(except a short summary) but I knew the story in the film would be different than the one in the book. Come on. There is little possibility to make a successful movie appealing without adding or changing some things. Overall, I liked how the story and bits of information were told. You will not be seeing clichéd news or billboards that poke the reality to the viewers face all the time. The fact that no children are born is a reality of life and even if its rarely mentioned very openly, you know it is there. Its in the air. And you can feel it all the way through the movie. Thats another thing I liked. In almost every scene of the movie, there is a sight that reminds you that things are falling apart despite the best attempts to hold it together. You can sense the hopelessness whether its in the form of a cracked window, a distant gunfire, the dirt and grime in the cities or the detention cages that illegal immigrants are put to. And all those images and the atmosphere, put together, make Children of Men one of the most emotional movies I watched.
However, the movie is not flawless. The first half of the movie felt somewhat slow and condensed. Something that I have experienced in other movies of Cuaron (such as Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban). During the first half, I got a feeling that the movie was just skimming through the story and hurrying up to reach the second half. I could swear that some scenes were cut or shortened just before the movie was released. However, the movie does shine in the second half that starts roughly from the sequence where the main characters leave Jasper to meet Sid (who is, by the way, a greatly written character on itself) and the whole Bexhill sequence. The scene where Kee gives birth and Theo has to act of midwife and the following sequences of the street battle and the "Fish" holdout in a tower block filled with civilians is one of the most violent, yet moving scenes that shows the ravages of war and the ruthlessness of its combatants all too well. I loved the shot where Luke keeps going between a state of war frenzy and a state of compassion for the newborn is, to me, a scene that reminds me of the things humanity lost in its fear of extinction and death. But the high point of the movie is the shot just few minutes later, when the whole world seems to stop for a moment upon the sight of the baby. I mentioned emotions and how Children on Men was a movie packed with it. That scene is the prime example and one of the most moving scenes I have watched.
The movie ends somewhat abruptly. The question whether humanity is saved or not is not answered. But I don't think its such a bad thing. An ending that humanity got saved would be a cliché and unfitting with the grimness and bleak perspective of the movie. An ending that humanity did go extinct, however, would be a bleakness that was too forced and would have made the story pointless. Thats why, it ended just in the right place.
Children of Men is a very bleak and depressing movie and I left the theatre feeling that way. But I don't find that as a bad thing. Shows that the movie was capable of invoke feelings. Also, as a lover of dystopian movies and books, I would have expected no other way. As a movie, it has its low points and it has its (very) high points. Thats why I did not regret seeing this movie at all and recommend it, but only if you're a lower of the genre. If you expect people cooperating each other for a better future and all that nonsense, pass this movie. It is one that shows the best and worst of humanity without cringing.