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Children Of Men (2-disc Special Edition) [2006]
![Children Of Men (2-disc Special Edition) [2006]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51LmlZtEoeL._SL160_.jpg)
RRP: £19.99
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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
Presenting a bleak, harrowing, and yet ultimately hopeful vision of humankind's not-too-distant future, Children of Men is a riveting cautionary tale of potential things to come. Set in the crisis-ravaged future of 2027, and based on the atypical 1993 novel by British mystery writer P.D. James, the anxiety-inducing, action-packed story is set in a dystopian England where humanity has become infertile (the last baby was born in 2009), immigration is a crime, refugees (or "fugees") are caged like animals, and the world has been torn apart by nuclear fallout, rampant terrorism, and political rebellion. In this seemingly hopeless landscape of hardscrabble survival, a jaded bureaucrat named Theo (Clive Owen) is drawn into a desperate struggle to deliver Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), the world's only pregnant woman, to a secret group called the Human Project that hopes to discover a cure for global infertility. As they carefully navigate between the battling forces of military police and a pro-immigration insurgency, Theo, Kee, and their secretive allies endure a death-defying ordeal of urban warfare, and director Alfonso Cuaron (with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki) capture the action with you-are-there intensity. There's just enough humour to balance the film's darker content (much of it coming from Michael Caine, as Theo's aging hippie cohort), and although Children of Men glosses over many of the specifics about its sociopolitical worst-case scenario (which includes Julianne Moore in a brief but pivotal role), it's still an immensely satisfying, pulse-pounding vision of a future that represents a frightening extrapolation of early 21st-century history. --Jeff Shannon
Way to the Future
Review date: 2008-12-02 Rating: 8 out of 10
Couldn't fathom why this film has such a low rating, then I read some of the reviews. I sympathise that some might find the film dull/unconvincing etc, so I won't waste time trying to preach to the unconvertable...I'll just offer my own tuppence-worth:
I'm becoming an avid fan of post-apocalyptic films & novels. Recently, I finished reading the Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (superb), and the similiarities between that & this are quite striking. Both take as a concept the idea that all our problems (or potential problems) stem from birth - the very means we come into the world. In Atwood's book, conception has become problematic, and so women have been removed from all aspects of life...other than the "job" of reproduction.
In Children of Men, things are less explicable - there are no more pregnancies. Simple as. No science, no exposition. And from here, director Cuaron envisions a world now fractured; unpicking itself at the seams, stitch by painful stitch. I'm baffled why one reviewer thinks that the prospect of no more births might be a reason for humanity to rejoice - doesn't really factor in the joy of having children, creating a family...perhaps this is why Clive Owen's character is so plagued by loneliness.
Immigration has become a hot issue in recent years, and in Children of Men, its natural development is explored: Britain is reduced to a holding-pen of sorts, bursting with "fugees", as they're known. Terrorism is a fact of everyday life. Technology is defunct, out-dated...
Clive Owen is the archetypal dissaffected protagonist: disillusioned with every day life, he witnesses a brutal bombing at the opening of the film, and from then on stumbles along in a kind of emotional entropy, as though never fully grasping (or caring for) his surroundings. Until the end, which might well be too late.
On the surface, the film is dirty, unattractive, brutal...but in creating such a film, Cuaron has chosen to shoot it in an elaborate fashion: as in the "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, the story may be bleak, but the means of telling it is beautiful. Contrasting one with the other, the film gains its power.
Perhaps these comments are verging on the vague, but I was deeply moved by Children of Men. The plot may not be strong, but the film isn't concerned with that - this is a film to be experienced, immersed by, not calculated. Like War itself, it is without much reason or logic, only guided by a dim hope. Hope in this case being life itself; life being the promise of coming change.
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Reviews
It's political Jim, but not as we know it
Review date: 2008-11-15 Rating: 8 out of 10
I'm gonna stick my neck on the line here now and state that I feel Clive Owen is just about the best actor doing the rounds today. I think it's got something to do with the fact that he doesn't seem to have any kind of personality whatsoever and so is therefore able to offer up a blank canvas and allow you to impose your own emotions to his performance. Enough with the new age tedium, the movie dammit!
Children Of Men is adapted from a PD James story and set in the not too distant future where untold ecological disasters have had the cumulative cause of rendering every woman infertile and thus no children have been born for many years.
Society is crumbling and the iron fist of fascism rules the roost in what some see as a necessary attempt to regain order. One of the major actions taken to try and achieve this is to label all non British subjects as illegal immigrants and to systematically deport them. I don't know really why it amused me so much but I did chuckle at the idea of Bexhill-On-Sea being turned into an internment camp to facilitate this mass eviction!
Then we have Clive. A former radical who is now a jaded reporter looking to keep his head down and merely get by. But blow me if he hasn't gone and found a woman who's got herself up the duff! Big news indeed and as such pretty much everyone wants a piece so it is down to Clive, with the help of Michael Caine as a former (or current) hippy, to get her out of the country to somewhere a little less oppressive.
For a thoughtful movie there is a surprising amount of action and the plot rolls along at a satisfying pace. Credit also needs to go to the skill in making the film, with a brilliant set piece involving Clive, the mother and her child moving through a decimated Bexhill during a mass attack by the authorities - all done in one continuous take.
Minor issues: Michael Caine seems half a sleep at times, not really deserving his billing as "and Michael Caine" in the credits and the ending is typical emotive Hollywood style fodder. I was also struck with the notion that London wouldn't look quite so over populated had there indeed not been any ankle biters born for 18 years!
But I thought the film was excellent none the less.
Oh and sorry the review was so stuffy, I got told off by Amazon for injecting some humour into my reviews!
Smash the system
A medieval miracle tale set in the year 2027, with a fine performance by Clive Owen
Review date: 2008-11-03 Rating: 8 out of 10
I suspect that if one agrees with what appears to be director Alfonso Cuaron's premise, that humankind's basest instincts for selfishness, fouling its own nest, violence toward each other and the acceptance of authoritarianism when faced with fear can be met by the redemptive power of hope and love, then one will accept Children of Men as a film of emotional power.
For me, Children of Men is a movie in which Cuaron tries to stuff in far too many actions. He seems to aiming for the kind of allegory that can change the way we feel about our lives, but he winds up making many of the compromises that movies force upon some directors as they find themselves with big budgets to work with and the need to sell tickets to justify the investment.
The story, as has been pointed out by others, is one big Macguffin. It's 2027 and civilization has fallen to its knees. The world is nothing but chaos, terrorism, a rotting environment and death. Britain has managed to survive as a nation state by becoming a horrendous dictatorship, needing immigrants for menial work and turning them into outcasts, periodically rounding them up along with the fugees, the refugees from the world's chaos who managed to slip past Britain's barriers. Concentration camps are filling up, laws are enforced with ferocity, there are no civil rights and the government has become the greatest killer of them all. In exchange, the British have order.
And it has been 19 years since a baby was born, anywhere in the world. Humankind has mysteriously become sterile. The point of the movie is that a frightened young woman is discovered to be pregnant. In an instant she becomes the center of the movie...will she be used by rebels to try to undermine the government? Will she find a way to escape by sea to some almost mythical group of scientists who are searching for peace and an answer to humankind's infertility? Will she and her baby be killed? Will they survive? It seems her only hope will be a burned-out, used-up functionary who once tried to change things, years ago. From the time this man first meets this scared girl-child and realizes that she's pregnant, to the end of the movie in a small rowboat waiting to see if mankind has a future, we're on a medieval journey through the terrors of hell as the girl and her protector deal with hatred, avarice, brutality, imprisonment, death and war.
The question for me was: Is all this Macguffining well done enough to be interesting? If it is, is the story itself worth it?
You'll have to make up your own minds. Simply as a story, I think whatever success Children of Men has had has depended on Clive Owen. He's the protector and he's in just about every scene. Owen is a fine actor. Unlike many actors who have made it to the top, he is most effective reacting. He seldom indulges in flashy heroics in his movies and doesn't do so here. At first, he's uncertain, confused and cautious. When he commits himself to the journey, he doesn't have all the answers, just a willingness to take advantage of opportunities and to risk his life because he's come to believe in what he is doing. It's a first-rate performance.
But then we have Julianne Moore as a rebel leader and Owen's former wife. In my view, she's too big a name for the size of the part, and the part is too large for the story. Michael Caine has a juicy role as Owen's older friend. He's gotten up to look like Brent Spiner in Independence Day. Caine does a nice job, but both he and Moore infect the movie with "star" presence. I think both roles would have been better for the movie if played by little known but good actors. Chiwetel Ejiofor is excellent as a dedicated and even ruthless rebel leader. But the movie only needs Owen, and he delivers.
Cuaron, in this medieval miracle tale, has given us a great look at the hell humanity has made for itself. At times, for me, he lingers on and expands this view the better to sell tickets. The whole extended urban battle at the end of the movie seemed to go on and on for no great purpose than to show us how a well-crafted urban war can be presented. Most of the movie's horrors, in fact, are so carefully framed and photographed, so well and ingeniously lit, that I was always aware I was watching a movie. Most movie-ish of all was that heavenly voice wafting down on us as humanity's redemption is resolved by a young mother and her baby.
This is one of those movies that, for me, needs to be taken seriously simply because a talented director with serious themes has made it. In this era of endless comic book movies and films with the old ultra violence, Cuaron deserves our respect. So does Clive Owen.
Try Owen in Croupier. To see Julianne Moore at her finest, try Vanya on 42nd Street. And for a taste of near sighted ur-dystopia not to be missed, read David Macaulay's Motel of the Mysteries.
Could have been better, but still good!
Review date: 2008-10-24 Rating: 8 out of 10
Whilst I enjoyed this movie, I'd have preferred to have seen a lot more of the build up as to why the UK was in the state it was as portrayed in the film.
The main body of the film felt stretched out a little too far, where a bit more build up could have given it a better pacing (IMHO!)
Having said that there is no way it deserves some of the amazingly negative reviews it has received on here, as it's a decent little apocalyptic film, albeit with flaws.
I far preferred it to the overhyped 'I Am Legend'
An amazing apocalyptic film
Review date: 2008-10-12 Rating: 10 out of 10
I felt the need to write this review after reading with confusion the negative review on this site. This is possibly one of my faveourite films viewed in 2006. It is most certainly a grim image of the future, which is understandable due to the films major themes, but who wants to view a film that is simply a feel good waste of time? Well i suppose if you're saying yes to this then you should most probably not purchase this film.
The acting was, in my opinion, borderline perfect. The feeling of the end being in sight and hope being lost was perfectly conveyed by Owen's performance; he truly drew you into the film. The directing was great also, from the way the future london was shot to the adrenalin filled ending i couldn't ask for more.
A poingnent film with a message, worth watching if you feeling like a serious film, if not i suggest pulling out the disney for some fun for all the family.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Michael Caine
Julianne Moore
Peter Mullan
Pam Ferris
Clive Owen
Creators:
Clive Owen (Primary Contributor)
Julianne Moore (Primary Contributor)
Recording label: Universal Pictures UK
Manufacturer: Universal Pictures UK
EAN: 5050582492491
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 2
Format: Anamorphic, PAL,
Release date: 2007-03-19
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 105 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2006
Language: English (Original Language)