Children of Men (Widescreen Edition) | Michael Caine, Pam Ferris

Children of Men (Widescreen Edition) | Michael Caine, Pam Ferris | better than the book, at least.

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Children of Men (W...

	Children of Men (Widescreen Edition) Michael Caine, Pam Ferris Universal Studios, 2007 average customer review:based on 413 reviews view larger image
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Absolutely amazing

This is one of the best movies of the last 5 years.
Ignore people who gave this one star, this is a fictional movie, yet very powerful. I saw it in the theater and then rented it from Blockbuster and it had been edited.
Watch for the scenes of torture, with the people with black bags over their heads.
This and the Usual Suspects are the two non comedy movies that I could watch more than once.
Amazing movie.

better than the book, at least.

Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)

I have to say up front that I was not a big fan of the book upon which this movie is based. Thus, I approached the film with a bit of trepidation; sometimes mediocre books make for great films, but more often than not, they don't. The good news is that Children of Men is better than the novel upon which it is based; the bad news is that it's probably not as good as it could have been.

Cuaron (who holds three Academy Award nominations, two of them for writing, none for directing) here gives us the story of Theo Faron (Clive Owen), a minor government functionary whose ex, Julian (Julianne Moore), is involved with a resistance group in a near-future London where women have lost the ability to bear children. (As the movie opens, the youngest person on the planet, at eighteen years and change, is killed in South America.) Julian contacts Theo and asks if he can pull some strings to get a young black refugee out of Britain and into the arms of the Human Project, a much wider-ranging revolutionary group based outside the country. (Britain has become a racists' paradise; even black citizens, it is inferred, are suffering the persecution that the "'fugees" suffer openly.) Theo goes about it halfheartedly until he finds out the reason this particular girl is so important: she's the first woman in more than eighteen years to become pregnant.

Owen and Moore both tend to be hit-or-miss actors, but they perform capably here. It helps that they're backed up by a fantastic stable of actors; Michael Caine is excellent as always, and the wonderful Peter Mullan, in a small role, absolutely steals the show. Cuaron turns an emotionless, overly talky book into a credible thriller. It's still a bit on the talky side, but is definitely faster-moving than the book. Worth a rental. ***

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