Children of Men
Grade: C+
The feel good hit of the season it ain’t.
Never-endingly dark, bleak, oppressive and brooding, this wouldn’t in and of itself present a problem (some of my favorite films, not to mention favorite people, share many of these same qualities) if the film weren’t also rather dull, sometimes self-important and ultimately pretty pointless.
We are 20 years into the future, the youngest living human being has died at the age of 18, and a state of national mourning has ensued Princess Diana style. You see, for some much theorized but ultimately inexplicable reason, the world has gone barren and only the United Kingdom has been left standing (the cheeky bastards). Anyone trying to immigrate into the country in search of luxuries like food and shelter are locked in cages where they rave and mutter to one another in a diversity of foreign tongues (although the most prominent language seems to be German, and Holocaust imagery – burning bodies, ominous checkpoints and hooded firing squad lines – abound, implying a culture that has become the evil it abhors). The British government is bad bad bad for keeping people out and taking away everyone else’s individual rights, one supposes because it would be to difficult to bash the United States since it no longer exists or George Bush since he’s no longer President. This is the future after all, and any current political commentary is purely coincidental.
In the middle of it all, a pregnant woman appears (how this happens we’re never really sure) and madcap mayhem ensues. The resistance movement wants her (to what end we’re never really sure) the government can never ever know about her (for what reason we’re never really sure) and a boat of freedom adrift in very foggy waters offers her safety and serenity (what this represents we’re never really sure of, either). Throw in some well-placed Christ-like imagery, do-it-yourself suicide kits, lots of machine gunfire and an awful lot of gray shading and you have an apocalyptic vision to be proud of.
Clive Owen is appropriately dreary and empathetic in one of the more underwritten leading roles of the year, a former activist turned bereft cynic forced by an ex-flame (played like wallpaper by Julianne Moore) to reactivate his heroic leanings. The always welcome Michael Caine does hippy throwback exceedingly well, and Clare-Hope Ashitey definitely has spunk as a pregnant woman all of humanity wants a piece of.
Director Alfonso Cuarón gets the imagery just right, simultaneously futuristic and retro, a vision of the war we all currently imagine in Iraq consuming the entire planet. Unfortunately, destruction, bedlam and an overall sense of catastrophic dread do not an engaging or cohesive story make, and a much anticipated payoff never arrives. A brief scene of eloquent clarity and import – warring factions only momentarily ceasing fire in astonished recognition of human life – never quite finds its way to the rest of the movie.
The feel good hit of the season it ain’t.
Never-endingly dark, bleak, oppressive and brooding, this wouldn’t in and of itself present a problem (some of my favorite films, not to mention favorite people, share many of these same qualities) if the film weren’t also rather dull, sometimes self-important and ultimately pretty pointless.
We are 20 years into the future, the youngest living human being has died at the age of 18, and a state of national mourning has ensued Princess Diana style. You see, for some much theorized but ultimately inexplicable reason, the world has gone barren and only the United Kingdom has been left standing (the cheeky bastards). Anyone trying to immigrate into the country in search of luxuries like food and shelter are locked in cages where they rave and mutter to one another in a diversity of foreign tongues (although the most prominent language seems to be German, and Holocaust imagery – burning bodies, ominous checkpoints and hooded firing squad lines – abound, implying a culture that has become the evil it abhors). The British government is bad bad bad for keeping people out and taking away everyone else’s individual rights, one supposes because it would be to difficult to bash the United States since it no longer exists or George Bush since he’s no longer President. This is the future after all, and any current political commentary is purely coincidental.
In the middle of it all, a pregnant woman appears (how this happens we’re never really sure) and madcap mayhem ensues. The resistance movement wants her (to what end we’re never really sure) the government can never ever know about her (for what reason we’re never really sure) and a boat of freedom adrift in very foggy waters offers her safety and serenity (what this represents we’re never really sure of, either). Throw in some well-placed Christ-like imagery, do-it-yourself suicide kits, lots of machine gunfire and an awful lot of gray shading and you have an apocalyptic vision to be proud of.
Clive Owen is appropriately dreary and empathetic in one of the more underwritten leading roles of the year, a former activist turned bereft cynic forced by an ex-flame (played like wallpaper by Julianne Moore) to reactivate his heroic leanings. The always welcome Michael Caine does hippy throwback exceedingly well, and Clare-Hope Ashitey definitely has spunk as a pregnant woman all of humanity wants a piece of.
Director Alfonso Cuarón gets the imagery just right, simultaneously futuristic and retro, a vision of the war we all currently imagine in Iraq consuming the entire planet. Unfortunately, destruction, bedlam and an overall sense of catastrophic dread do not an engaging or cohesive story make, and a much anticipated payoff never arrives. A brief scene of eloquent clarity and import – warring factions only momentarily ceasing fire in astonished recognition of human life – never quite finds its way to the rest of the movie.
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More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0206634/
posted by SternReviews @ 8:32 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Such a happy way to spend an evening!!! I bet you'd have a better time visiting Florida! We miss you!
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