Children of Men

[avatar]

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/childrenofmen/

It looks really damn good.

[Mman]

Wow, this does look full of fucking potential. Hope it is awesome.

[perkyskirt]

This will probably be the next movie I see.

[Glitch]

This and the Borat movie assures me that someone finally got the bright idea to start making movies good again.

[AstroBlue]

I really REALLY REALLY wanna see this movie.

[Taito]

I saw this movie last month. There's a Wikipedia page that fairly accurately details the events of the film.

I was disappointed that they didn't attempt to explain anything-- why humans lost the ability to procreate, what the Human Project truly was, etc.-- the movie ends abruptly, flashing the movie title and rolling the credits, not unlike another Universal release this year called Miami Vice. The movie is little more than a journey through a dystopic United Kingdom.

The acting is also slightly disappointing, especially Michael Caine's ham performance. Plus, in what I suppose is an attempt to levitate the emotionally draining subject of human extinction, the screenplay is littered with mild but inappropriate moments of humor. It didn't really bother me until I watched The Departed, which blended humor into the dialogue without spoiling the overall mood of the film.

The movie's positives are the imagery and cinematography. England is pretty frightening in that it's barely changed from the present day, although everything has gone completely wrong. It's like when Marty travels to the alternate 1985 Hill Valley in Back to the Future 2-- everything looks very familiar until you take a closer look and notice bars on windows, fires everywhere, and modern society at its darkest and most inhumane hour. V for Vendetta shares a similar subject and setting, but that movie looks like a children's morning show in comparison.

There's also a series of long camera shots that last up to, or beyond, a minute without cutting (although some scenes were edited together to give the illusion of a single take). The director also gives the film an air of paranoia and uncertainty of who will survive to the end of the film, that keeps your eyes glued to the screen. This, the violent gunfights and the grey, undersaturated look of the film reminds me a lot of Saving Private Ryan.

Children of Men is a decent movie, but I don't think it will generate rave reviews or Oscar attention (aside from Editing/Cinematography nominations).

[arjue]

I saw this today and I really enjoyed it.

I was disappointed that they didn't attempt to explain anything-- why humans lost the ability to procreate, what the Human Project truly was, etc.-- the movie ends abruptly, flashing the movie title and rolling the credits, not unlike another Universal release this year called Miami Vice. The movie is little more than a journey through a dystopic United Kingdom.

I dunno, i really liked that. I don't see why we need all of these details handed to us, Its not like knowing what happened would have affected the journey of the characters

There's also a series of long camera shots that last up to, or beyond, a minute without cutting (although some scenes were edited together to give the illusion of a single take). The director also gives the film an air of paranoia and uncertainty of who will survive to the end of the film, that keeps your eyes glued to the screen. This, the violent gunfights and the grey, undersaturated look of the film reminds me a lot of Saving Private Ryan.

It is such a beautiful movie, the camera work is fucking amazing and the war scenes are the best I've seen in any film. The way they shot the bomb blast in the beginning of the film gave me wood. It better win something for this.

[Taito]

I dunno, i really liked that. I don't see why we need all of these details handed to us, Its not like knowing what happened would have affected the journey of the characters

I thought pandemic infertility was an interesting subject for a fictional story (well, as absurd as it was interesting), and I was looking forward to see the movie make a clever explanation why 100% of the human population spontaneously lost the ability to reproduce.

Without revealing the cause, the movie left me with the impression that any doomsday scenario would have brought the movie's world to its present state. Infertility was humanity's death sentence, sure. But all the world's governments collapsing, the 'war on immigration,' cows burning in the fields, legal euthanasia products-- did any of that relate to the infertility defect? Not so much that any other crisis would not have triggered those developments.

Like I said, I enjoyed the movie, but I felt it lacked substance. Maybe if the trailer didn't make the film seem more like an intelligent sci-fi thriller than a simple dystopic adventure, I would have expected less.

[arjue]

Fair enough. I went in under the impression it was a fun chase movie, and thats what I got and then some.

[Taito]

Convenient. Even 'chase movies' like Minority Report invite you to think about something. If I knew beforehand that Children of Men was on par with Dawn of the Dead 2k4 for substance, I would have waited for video-- although I'm glad I watched it in theaters for the sights and sounds.