Children of Men

Last night, Justen and I decided on a whim to go out for "date night" (since we had tried this weekend, but didnt make the movie). We are trying to make our rounds to see all of the Oscar movies (that we are interested in) before the big night. Last night we decided on dinner at Locale in Astoria, and then seeing CHILDREN OF MEN.

I will talk more about Locale later, as it is one of our frequents, but for now I will talk about CHILDREN OF MEN.

As anyone who knows me can attest, I am not the biggest Sci-Fi fan in the world. Justen has gotten hooked on Battlestar Gallactica, and allthough I think that the show is beautiful, I seem to lose interest. Generally with Sci-Fi, there is so much back-story that I don't know that I don't really buy into the whole thing, and mostly feel kinda dumb when I watch it.

Anyways, CHILDREN OF MEN basically takes place in the year 2023, when the world is infertile and basically collapsing on itself. The major powers of the world have crumbled, and the UK exists as a police state. There are severe treatments of immigrants (very Guantanamo Bay) and sweeping views of rampant warfare (very USA in Iraq) and even a few throwbacks to the Holocaust. And this is just to the casual viewer.

Much of the movie is filmed hand-held with long sweeping shots (which I love). There is even a moment when the lens gets splattered with blood, and you can see how long the shot is because the blood (obviously) stays there.

The film stars Clive Owen and Julianne Moore (and I am a fan of both) and as a wonderful supporting character, Michael Caine. The problem with this film is that I went in expecting one thing, and definitely got another. I went in expecting something very heady, very thick, very suspenseful. Thats not quite what this is. It is very Bourne Identity in the way that it is just an action movie with a very simple plot, yet the former definitely introduces many interesting plot twists that this film does not.

The main twist in this film occurs when you discover that the "rescuers" may or may not have been responsible for a major death in the film. This twist is not quite unexpected, and our protagonists drive on towards their goal.

There is a beautiful scene in the film when the baby is brought through a war zone, and as the baby cries, everyone stops and stares. (There has not been a baby born for almost 19 years). The fighting quickly resumes as our clever Clive Owen manages to dodge bullets that are flying every which-a-way. After all that gun-fire, it seems odd that he is only hit once in the whole film.

The vision of "the future" is not far off from where we are now (which I am sure is intentional) the environment is a wasteland, government is corrupt, and people destitute. You would think that the movie would be more interesting than it is.