arghyle

I set aside some time tonight to go out to see Children of Men, a newly released movie starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, and Michael Caine.

The movie is a sci-fi thriller based in the UK, about twenty years in the future. The premise of the story is that the world has basically fallen apart and they only nation left with any sort of order is England but that order is actually put forth by a cruel police state (sort of like in V for Vendetta). The women in this world are all infertile and no one has had a child in about 18 years- there is no official word on whether the violence and disorder happened because of the infertility or the other way around, but it is a moot point.

Once the basics are established the movie moves along relatively quickly and we are soon introduced to the rebel “Fishes” and the pregnant girl. Towards the climax and end of the movie it struck me as borrowing heavily from 28 Days Later, but it could just be the post-apocalyptic Britain thing (though I was not reminded of Reign of Fire at all).

Overall I had pretty high expectations for the movie, and I have to say that it wasn’t bad. I don’t think it can stand up to the hype, but it was interesting, enjoyable, and was able to entertain me throughout the runtime. Points of the movie were hard to take seriously if were not able to suspend your disbelief and get involved in how truly awed someone would be if, for instance, they saw a baby (the first one in 18 years) after having completely given up on ever having a child or seeing one.

As for the cinematography and soundtrack- there were some very good moments, but neither was amazing. I think the most interesting point here was that almost every scene of the movie has a dog in it. Whether it is running around or being carried there was always a dog- this got to the point where I thought that the dogs were part of the plot. As for the soundtrack, it is mostly recycled songs from the 60s, for some reason, but at one point Michael Caine starts to rock out to some sort of hardcore deathjam, which still makes no sense to me.

All told, it was not as great as everyone said, but I liked it. The movie kept me interested and I enjoyed it through the entire runtime. I can’t say the ending was very satisfying and if you are in search of answers you won’t be happy either, but just like with so many other sci-fi stories the author was either too lazy or not clever enough to reach any sort of real resolution. So- not amazing, but worth watching, one of the better movies I have seen in awhile.

Note: this review was going to be much better, but I hit ctrl-z (undo) and for some reason Wordpress freaked out. It deleted my last few paragraphs and it refused to ctrl-y (redo) them. I guess I need to save more often….

edit: Here is another, slightly more positive, review.

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