Children of Men Review

[wbassett]

Actors: Juan Gabriel Yacuzzi, Michelle Hussain, Rob Curling, Jon Chevalier, Rita Davies
Directors: Alfonso Cuarón
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English
Region: Region 1

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number of discs: 1
Rating R
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Release Date: March 27, 2007
Run Time: 110 minutes



Blame this one on Marshall! I was listening to his pod casts and he did a review on Children of Men and it reminded me just how much I disliked this movie.

Children of Men could have been so much more and still managed to get its message across if they wouldn't have tried so hard to force feed the message. To make sure that everyone is inundated with the director's political agenda, the special features feel like extreme propaganda. The meaning may be valid, but it feels like a cult brain washing.

The cast had some big names like Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Julianne Moore (who played... Julian, how original!)

Everything is covered, Global Warming, evil governments, mankind as a whole as generally self destructive and, well evil! Even SUV's get blamed in the special features.

In the end this was just way too heavy and too preachy for me. The ending was even a let down. All the build up, or I should said hard work at attempting a build up just fizzles out like a match in the rain.

I agree that it was shot in a artsy film nor kind of way, but other than that I can't really say much about it that I liked. I happen to really like Clive Owen a lot and seeing him as the lead actor, and after hearing rave reviews I did blind buy on this one. This is the reason to rent movies first if you aren't sure, but so many people raved about this one...

To begin with, I'm not very big on pretentious movies that have a political message. Movies should be entertainment and some do manage to pull off social commentary along with a good story. This was neither.

The movie starts in a not so distant future where for some unexplained reason the human race has lost the ability to reproduce. The movie starts out with some promise and hope of a good action thriller. I kept waiting to find some secret about Theodore Faron (Clive Owen)- like he was some sort of James Bond gone bad character, or ex-military intelligence, I would have even settled for a former circus clown, something, anything... but alas he's just an ex-political activist.

Theo does have a past, one he would rather forget. The movie would have faired much better if that was explored some more, but the special features really filled in the gaps that the movie only manages to glaze over. Sorry I was being sarcastic. I didn't learn anything about the movie or characters, but I did find out that we all deserve the future the director depicts.

Theo is reluctantly thrust into the role of protector. He has to get a young woman who has become pregnant and is the world's 'last hope' to safety. They have to make their way through a war torn society of repressive governments and back stabbing hoodlums to a group of scientists and doctors that are rumored to be floating around the ocean on a big ship that doubles as a science facility.

The film is dark, moody and preachy. The special features only confirm that the director had more of a mission and message than a story to tell.

The dialog is flat and lacked any sense of realism or punch.

Jasper (Michael Caine)-Offering Miriam a joint
Everything is a mythical, cosmic battle between faith and chance.

Miriam (Pam Ferris)
Maybe I shouldn't.

Jasper
You already did. Take another one. Now cough. What do you taste?

Miriam
Strawberries!

Jasper
Strawberries? That's what it's called: Strawberry Cough!


Jasper
So. You've got faith over here, right? And chance over there.

Miriam
Like yin and yang.

Jasper
Sort of.

Miriam
Or Shiva and Shakti.

Jasper
Lennon and McCartney!

There are more scenes and dialog pertinent to the plot, but it's not much better than that.

I actually watched this movie twice thinking maybe I was distracted the first time, or maybe it was just 'so good' I couldn't comprehend it or 'get it' the first time around. I can honestly say I could watch this one a hundred times and still wouldn't like it.

No Stars for this one. I'd actually give it negative stars but there is no icon for that. If you want the same feeling but don't want to sit through 110 minutes of constant reminders of how rotten the human race can be, save your time and money and hit your self repeatedly with a hammer while having the person you dislike the most in life recite every reason they despise you.

[Mitch G]

This does seem to be one of those polarizing movies that people either really like or really hate. I'm in the former category. I liked the premise, I loved the cinematography and direction and I didn't find the dialog as lame as indicated above (they were smoking pot, after all ). And, I thought the ending was reasonably mysterious. As I think about it more, I may just have to rent the HD-DVD and watch this movie again.

As far as the biggest let down movie for me? Hmmm I would have to think about that a bit. I was very disappointed in I Robot - other than the basic premise of robots and the 3 laws, it had nothing to do with the book (which was actually a collection of short stories). But, I'm going to have to think about this a bit more since I'm sure there was some other piece of Hollywood garbage in my past somewhere.


Mitch

[wbassett]

That's fair Mitch and I was a bit rough on Children of Men. Yes the style was unique, and it did show that Clive Owen can act. I think I could have gotten through it and tried to look deeper into it if I didn't watch the special features, or if the special features were about the characters and more about the making of the movie than a political commentary.

I Robot, yeah that was a bad one too. I read the book which is probably what really did the movie in for me. Another Wil Smith stinker... The Wild Wild West

[Hakka]

I enjoyed this movie, I accidentally bought the fullscreen version on DVD, which gave me an excuse to grab the HD DVD. I watched it last night and I think I liked it more the second time.

Hakka.

[Sonnie]

I did not want to rent this movie... for some reason it just didn't attract my attention. However, desperate for something new I picked it up one day and forced myself to watch it. While it is not on my list of movies to watch again, it was fair enough that it managed to hold my attention the entire film. I'd give it a couple of stars I suppose. Worth a rental anyway... maybe use one of your free rentals on it.

[Mitch G]

wbassett wrote:

<snip>
I think I could have gotten through it and tried to look deeper into it if I didn't watch the special features, or if the special features were about the characters and more about the making of the movie than a political commentary.
<snip>

That's an interesting point. I did not watch the special features. For a science fiction movie like Children of Men, I would agree that politically charged special features would be a turnoff. It's one thing to talk about the carnage in Africa as a special feature in Blood Diamond, but science fiction movies, almost by definition, shouldn't use special features to tie back to modern geo-political issues.


Mitch

[wbassett]

Seriously Mitch, if you have the DVD, check them out. They had some interesting comments but none really about the movie. Sure they made some references, but no back story, no insight into things, mostly they talked about how rotten we are as a race of beings, to some extent that's true, but at times they just sounded a bit too obsessed with it.

There were two cool features, one on the car scene and the special camera rig, and another on when the baby was born. The rest was political commentary.

I watched the movie the first time without looking at the special features. Rarely do I check out the bonus section first if I have never seen the movie because usually it gives away some plot points. First time through watching Children of Men I just wasn't sure. It definitely wasn't some over the top action flick where the hero was more like a comic book super hero just minus the cape. In that sense I did like it. Something just seemed missing, and it did come across a bit heavy on the first viewing. So I went to the special features.

That really ruined the second viewing to be totally honest. Until I watched them, I was ready to say CoM was a 'deep' movie, but not necessarily an action thriller like I thought it was going to be.

As far as polarizing, I think that is a good description and I also think the director intended it to be such. In that respect he succeeded.

I guess in the end, based on seeing one trailer and lots of rave reviews, I expected something else, like a popcorn thriller. I felt more like I was lectured by my parents by the time it was over though.

[Mitch G]

You know what? I did watch the baby special feature now that you mention it. It was very cool. But, I did stay away from the commentary.


Mitch

[eugovector]

I reviewed Children of Men in episode 12 of my podcast, and at the time gave it 3 stars. However, maybe my opinion would have been skewed had I spent some time with the commentary and extras (which I rarely do).

Frankly, with most movies I don't like, the last thing I want is to spend more time with the DVD. Even on movies I love (Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, Equilibrium), I'd rarely listen to the commetary or view the extras more than once, if that.

With Children of Men, I did check out the extras just enough to watch a little bit on the visual effects, to try to confirm my suspicion that the long shots were actually composited short takes. Never did find what I was looking for, but the segment on how the baby was born pretty much made my suspicion a safe bet.

Long story short, I think for all the effort they put in this movie, they sure came up short. I could agree with you that this movie was preachy, if I knew what the message was. Lacking a coherent message, the movie, much like this post, is merely a series of half-interesting ramblings...