A movie I would not recommend that is, for the most part, fairly well made

Rating: 3/10 (12 January 2007)

Many great Science Fiction works have problems of today's society couched in issues of the future. The original Star Trek series did this successfully numerous times, this movie does not.
The directory, Alfonso Cuaron, has used this movie purely as a vehicle to push his personal political agenda. The premise of this movie borrows heavily from Margaret Atwood's the Handmaiden's Tale. Children of Men is set in England 20 years in the future, 18 years after all women are infertile and unable to conceive children. In this bleak future, society begins to collapse and wars, terrorist groups, and apocalyptic religious cults are ubiquitous. In this futurist England, the government has used the strife caused by women's infertility to turn the country into a police state. From what I can determine, the main goal of this police state, which the director hammers home, time, and time again throughout the entire movie, is to stop illegal immigration. Meaning the British government has police squads that round up illegal immigrants, places them in internment camps that resemble Manhattan in Escape from New York, and I assume eventually deports them. However, the main plot is suppose to be about a lone girl that somehow managed to conceive a baby, getting her to a safe place to raise her child, and hopefully finding out why she can conceive children.
Such a plot gives ample means to deliver a compelling story. For example, maybe the government plans to use the girl to repopulate the earth through selective breeding, or some other means. However, Cuaron chose a different path.
The movie has many plot holes and does not fully explain why they must get this girl to safety and he even contradicts himself regarding people's supposed reactions and actual reactions to this girl. Furthermore, throughout the entire movie he mottles the plot with his pro-illegal immigrant political message. However, the main question that comes mind is that if women have not been able to conceive children for 20 years, certainly the population of every country would start to decrease. So, why would the government be so concerned with stopping illegal immigration? If the population decreases the government's tax base would decrease, to combat this they would need to attract immigrants. Huhh, I guess the director did not think that far ahead.
Anyway, what I took away from this movie is that Alfonso Cuaron being Mexican is unhappy with the US's illegal immigration policy that affects so many of his countrymen, which is not suppose to be the premise of this movie.