I enjoyed this. Most futuristic, sci-fi (I'm not sure if Children of Men is sci-fi... don't think so), apocalyptic thrillers are fine with me. There are some quite intense scenes that are really well filmed. Alfonso Cuarón is an impressive filmmaker, at least, from what I've seen of his films so far (his Harry Potter film is the best in that series by a long way, I think). Clive Owen is pretty good in this, in fact all of the acting is top-notch.
It all seems a bit hollow though. We have Clive's character trying to get a pregnant woman to a mysterious scientific project ship, because the world is in complete disarray, due to the inability of having children. And there is a freedom fighting/terrorist organisation that have rather vague motives. Not much is really explained at all, and this means the film is just 110 minutes of action with a couple of forced philosophical moments that miss the mark. I don't mind ambiguity as a storytelling method, if it actually works, but I don't think it does here. Maybe I just need to watch it again.
That said, it is a really exciting, visually stunning film and a lot of people seem to like it.
3 Stars.
4 comments:
Children of Men counts as sci-fi in the literary world, although pedants would class it as "speculative fiction".
Either way, it does what the best SF does: it explores how our societies affect our humanity, and vice versa.
Oh yeah, read the book.
I would like to read the book and I plan to.
I think, in most cases, if a film requires its audience to read the novel it's adapted from, in order to understand it, then it hasn't succeeded as a story-telling device. What do you think?
I *loved* the dark 80s' feel.
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