Sunday, January 07, 2007

Mission World: See this Movie

The film: Children of Men

I have waited for weeks for this shocking “brave new future”; “Apocalypse close, but not yet” Political drama that was finally released here in the Midwest last week Friday. Kristen and I saw Children of Men today at the AMC Arbor Lakes theater in Maple Grove.
Here is the movie Trailer found on YouTube uploaded by sallbritton

or Apple Trailers

Both the NY Times and the Star Tribune have had positive reviews with the Star Tribune having the best IMO and giving 4 stars here are a few excerpts:
Text in black are my added thoughts and comments
Movie review: Future shock in 'Children of Men'
"Children of Men" offers a brilliant look at a dark future -- with a small glimmer of hope.
By Colin Covert, Star Tribune
The time is soon, the place familiar, the vision devastating. London, 2027, is a crowded, decaying metropolis under martial law. "The world has collapsed; only Britain soldiers on," TV announcers declare. Video walls report endless overseas wars and advertise pharmaceutical suicide kits. An infertility pandemic swept the globe in 2009. Humanity as a species is at its last gasp, while humanity as a spiritual quality is gone already.

The story's focus is Theo (Clive Owen), a rumpled, booze-soaked bureaucrat with the Ministry of Energy (the movie is not without moments of sharp irony or inaccuracy if you read the book). Years ago he went along for the ride when his onetime partner Julian (Julianne Moore) (who makes a rather short appearance and could have played a larger role in the film IMO) pulled him into dissident politics. Suddenly she's back, seeking Theo's help to transport a secretive young refugee named Kee (Claire Hope-Ashitey) across England. Theo is suspicious; the activists pursue noble-sounding ends with violent, treacherous means. Most of the film's bloodshed is committed in the name of freedom.

Still, Theo agrees, maybe for the paltry bribe Julian offers, maybe because seeing her reanimates him, or maybe because it's the decent thing to get sullen young Kee out of London's urban hell.

But the forest has its terrors, too. Theo and Kee face outbursts of brilliantly orchestrated carnage that could be handheld war footage, and their baptism of fire changes them. Theo goes from clinging to existence to embracing life, courageously protecting the girl, while she entrusts him with a secret that could alter mankind's future.

Director Alfonso Cuaron (who made "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" genuinely fantastic) films "Children of Men" with a grimy realism that grips your nerves and never lets go. There are tour-de-force chase sequences here that would make Spielberg weep hot tears of envy (my personal favorite part of this review, sounds like something my brother or I would say), and the crystalline cinematography is a gallery of astonishments.

In most sci-fi epics, special effects substitute for story. Here they seamlessly advance it; the double-decker buses feature dazzling video billboards, while the interiors are shabby and worn. It's such densely textured atmosphere that makes the strongest impression; almost every location carries the haunting sense that terrible things happened on this spot. (still more backstory would have been better)
Excerpts end here.


Colin Covert • ccovert@startribune.com
©2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
To see the entire article online


Now you have seen the trailer and you have read one of the reviews of this film, so the task is now to tell me what you think…how close are we to the depictions of the future and if anyone has read the book, would you recommend reading it before seeing the film or after?

This is your assignment blogosphere readers of this outpost known as Ain’t nothin but a drew thing, take it or leave it (and I do hope you take it) :-D

1 comment:

Andrew said...

An Author making a comment on his own post...not entirely unheard of. My parents saw the film today and had mixed feelings about Children of Men. My mother was particularly surprised how the result of the human race's infertility would result in increases in violence, war, and the collapse of western society and how there wasn't a world wide reaction from scientists to cull the violence, and why governments would lock up young refugees instead of accepting them and encouraging them to come for possible cures; while my Dad joked that if we could no longer have children there would be a lot more disposable income for people and while talking it wouldn't matter if people used up all the oil, if the race is to be extinct in the next 50 years than what would be the incentive for environmentalism or conservation of any kind?
This debate got us interested in the book that pre-dated the film published in 1992 written by P.D. James author of famous British detective novels.
The next post in this subject matter, will be an article my Dad found regarding the comparisons between the book and the film which I know hope to read.