Children Of Men Review
I watched Children of Men with Annie and Vicki a few weeks ago and though it wasn’t particularly hard to digest, it took me a while to find time to sit and write this review. Mostly, I wanted to post this review because, while searching Sfgate.com for some appropriately timed 
movie showings for this Friday night, I came across the blurb in the Chron about Children of Men. The reviewer, “P. Hartlaub” gave C.o.M. a jumping-out-of-seat-ovation man. Around these parts, that means top-notch, five stars.
movie showings for this Friday night, I came across the blurb in the Chron about Children of Men. The reviewer, “P. Hartlaub” gave C.o.M. a jumping-out-of-seat-ovation man. Around these parts, that means top-notch, five stars.I found C.o.M to be grossly overrated and more of a half-wit’s story told to a half-wit audience.
The premise behind Children Of Men is that the planet earth’s population of women, for whatever reason, has suddenly become unable to bear children. The book, on which Children of Men is based might have explored the whys of this global barrenness, but the movie didn’t bother. Faced with extinction, the governments of the world start imploding as people riot and struggle for
survival. The year is 2027 and the setting is Great Britain. Great Britain is the last standing democracy that managed to withstand the struggle for temporary survival. The rest of the movie depicts the events surrounding the discovery of one young woman who happens to be the first pregnant woman in 18 or 19 years.
I can’t help but to discuss the politics behind CoM because the messages that the writer/director/producers try to convey are so blatantly liberal and painfully undisguised that the plot itself is less a plot than it is a two-hour allegory for the left-wing mindset regarding modern day immigration policies.
So let’s get straight to the review (click here to see my movie review criteria)…
Legs 4/10
I really can’t see how this movie would be tolerable at a second go-around. The symbolism that the moviemakers try to disguise is about as well-hidden as the objects in the Hidden Picture feature in Highlights for Kids. Sometimes a movie that is heavily laden with symbolism is worth a second look because you want to discover all the things that you may have missed the first time around. But this film hits you over the head with symbolism in a manner that is bordering on insulting. I mean really; the woman who is found pregnant and likely the salvation of mankind is named “Kee”. (As in, the “Kee” to the world. Beeotch, please.) And the cargo ship that Kee floats patiently in treacherous waters for – the ship that will carry her to safety, to the new and improved future of humanity – is called the “Tomorrow”. Furthermore, re-watching this bleak, depressing movie will only add to the headache you already have or give you the headache that you didn’t realize how happy you were you didn’t have.
Agenda 2/10
If you’re a left wing, anti-American, open-boarder-loving dude, you’ll love the message in this movie. (OK, I take back the anti-American remark; just because you are for open borders doesn’t mean you are against America – I’ll admit this much. But if you hate our current administration just for peer pressure’s sake, you will, indeed, be pliable enough to love the themes laced throughout this film.)
Here is a list of things that I remember about the movie that show its true colors – but is nowhere near the amount of things that are actually in the movie.
The premise behind Children Of Men is that the planet earth’s population of women, for whatever reason, has suddenly become unable to bear children. The book, on which Children of Men is based might have explored the whys of this global barrenness, but the movie didn’t bother. Faced with extinction, the governments of the world start imploding as people riot and struggle for
survival. The year is 2027 and the setting is Great Britain. Great Britain is the last standing democracy that managed to withstand the struggle for temporary survival. The rest of the movie depicts the events surrounding the discovery of one young woman who happens to be the first pregnant woman in 18 or 19 years.I can’t help but to discuss the politics behind CoM because the messages that the writer/director/producers try to convey are so blatantly liberal and painfully undisguised that the plot itself is less a plot than it is a two-hour allegory for the left-wing mindset regarding modern day immigration policies.
So let’s get straight to the review (click here to see my movie review criteria)…
Legs 4/10
I really can’t see how this movie would be tolerable at a second go-around. The symbolism that the moviemakers try to disguise is about as well-hidden as the objects in the Hidden Picture feature in Highlights for Kids. Sometimes a movie that is heavily laden with symbolism is worth a second look because you want to discover all the things that you may have missed the first time around. But this film hits you over the head with symbolism in a manner that is bordering on insulting. I mean really; the woman who is found pregnant and likely the salvation of mankind is named “Kee”. (As in, the “Kee” to the world. Beeotch, please.) And the cargo ship that Kee floats patiently in treacherous waters for – the ship that will carry her to safety, to the new and improved future of humanity – is called the “Tomorrow”. Furthermore, re-watching this bleak, depressing movie will only add to the headache you already have or give you the headache that you didn’t realize how happy you were you didn’t have.
Agenda 2/10
If you’re a left wing, anti-American, open-boarder-loving dude, you’ll love the message in this movie. (OK, I take back the anti-American remark; just because you are for open borders doesn’t mean you are against America – I’ll admit this much. But if you hate our current administration just for peer pressure’s sake, you will, indeed, be pliable enough to love the themes laced throughout this film.)
Here is a list of things that I remember about the movie that show its true colors – but is nowhere near the amount of things that are actually in the movie.
- In the movie, illegal immigrants are round up and shipped out of the country. This is obviously a jab at current British laws regarding the deportation of illegal immigrants. In the movie, however, it is depicted as a horrible, fascist endeavor characterized by hogtied individuals who are shot execution style whose bodies are lined in neat little rows reminiscent of the Nazi regimes treatment of Jews prior to World War II. Have any British or American policies caused this sort of murderous behavior? Certainly not! But what about Islamic theocracies of the Middle East? Have they killed people with this kind of callousness? Of course they have. It’s common knowledge – and yet, in the movie, it’s the Western Democracies that perpetrate such hated, not the true modern day fascists of the Middle East.
- The movie shows busloads of illegals being deported in buses labeled “Homeland Security”. This is an obvious jab at American policies. Great Britain doesn’t currently have a Department of Homeland Security, that I know of.
- Illegal immigrants are rounded up and shipped off to little townships that resemble the Jewish Ghettos of the WWII era. Poverty, crime, and destitution are commonplace because the people are left in rags and crumbled hovels to fend for themselves. This is an obvious attempt to persuade the audience that deportation of illegals is a cruel policy that civilized people would not engage in. It’s clearly barbaric and Naziistic.
- The Uprising is movement of the collective illegals to overthrow the British Government who have suppressed them. On a concrete wall, the phrase “The Uprising is coming” is spray-painted and just above it is an Arabic scrawling that I assume says something similar. Why the phrase “the uprising is coming” is deliberately paired with Arabic is anyone’s guess. I have a guess but I don’t need to spell out why I think that particular juxtaposition was made.
- Here's one of my favorites: Later, when the uprising actually starts, we see a throng of people all chanting “Allah Akhbar” ("Allah is Great") and marching forward to rebel against their oppressors. Gee. I wonder what that symbolizes.
- Every “good” or helpful character in this movie is aleftist. Michael Crane, who plays the best friend of the protagonist Clive Owen, is a pot-smoking, weed-growing, long-haired, conspiracy theorist ex-hippy who would look as comfortable wearing Birkenstocks and holding a picket sign as he would wearing a tweed suit standing behind a podium at the University of Berkeley. At one point in the movie, he euthanizes his invalid wife and lonely dog. Another character who reaches out a helping hand to Clive Owen and his mission to save the world’s only pregnant woman, is an old, Socialist Russian gypsy woman who lives in an apartment adorned with miniature busts and article clippings of Lenin. Why are all the heroes in this movie left-leaning liberals or straight-up socialists? Why can’t a capitalistic Michael P. Keaton be the savior or mankind? Ha. I jest, of course, but it’s clear that the message here is socialism = good; nationalism = murderous fascism.
This movie is chock full of left wing agendas and you can’t watch the movie without either (A) letting it subtly seep into your mind set or (B) try so hard to ignore it that it obstructs your enjoyment of the film. Even sans political statements or political analysis, this movie is actually quite hollow and cheap.
Script 5/10
Nothing spectacular here. The script lacks charm and wit or even the intelligence and cleverness which I prefer over the heavy-handedness that I found throughout. The most delightful and clever scenes are the scenes with Michael Caine’s character, but as I mentioned before, the politicking is so strong that it’s hard to enjoy anything else that is happening. I think this might be a case of ‘the book was better than the movie’. There were a few parts that typify a movie that is thoroughly devoid of thought. You know those moments where you think to yourself, “why don’t they just do this?” or “why can’t she just go there?” because if they did, their problems would all be solved. It’s not unlike Fox’s 24; in the heat of a terrorist incident, Chloe can’t just call someone to come and take the baby for a few hours? Instead, she has to hide him under her desk?!
Acting/Directing 8/10
Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, and Clive Owen all did an exceptional job selling the world of Britain 2027. It was thoroughly convincing and Owen’s character is so utterly depressed in the first half of the movie that you begin to feel the same hopeless boredom that people in a world without children would most certainly feel. I think everyone did a good job all around. Caine stole every scene he was in, however, so the best performance in this film has to go to him.
The director did a good job of making the world bleak and its characters either wrought with desperation or saddled with complete hopelessness. It’s clear from a short glance that the characters are either going to try to do something about what they think is wrong with the world or that they are just giving in to their sad state. This sort of emotional communication is a tribute to Alfonso Cuaron’s directorial prowess.
Production 8/10
The very believable and un-cartoony future world of twenty years later is riddled with great props and realistic technology. The semi-post-apocalyptic vibe we get throughout the movie in a very damp London and its surrounding countryside is very convincing. The art direction and production design was excellent.
Overall 5/10
The movie was a brave endeavor, I think. The story is unique (though borrowed from a 1992 book) and worth telling. However, the inundation of political messages (which, I think, the original novel didn’t bother with) and a very average script made it into a long propaganda film that is frustrating to sit through if you don’t drink their particular flavor of Kool Aid. (I have my own favorite flavors of Kool Aid.) Children of Men could have been a much better movie if they focused more on the dilemma at hand and spent less time politicizing everything.
Script 5/10
Nothing spectacular here. The script lacks charm and wit or even the intelligence and cleverness which I prefer over the heavy-handedness that I found throughout. The most delightful and clever scenes are the scenes with Michael Caine’s character, but as I mentioned before, the politicking is so strong that it’s hard to enjoy anything else that is happening. I think this might be a case of ‘the book was better than the movie’. There were a few parts that typify a movie that is thoroughly devoid of thought. You know those moments where you think to yourself, “why don’t they just do this?” or “why can’t she just go there?” because if they did, their problems would all be solved. It’s not unlike Fox’s 24; in the heat of a terrorist incident, Chloe can’t just call someone to come and take the baby for a few hours? Instead, she has to hide him under her desk?!
Acting/Directing 8/10
Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, and Clive Owen all did an exceptional job selling the world of Britain 2027. It was thoroughly convincing and Owen’s character is so utterly depressed in the first half of the movie that you begin to feel the same hopeless boredom that people in a world without children would most certainly feel. I think everyone did a good job all around. Caine stole every scene he was in, however, so the best performance in this film has to go to him.The director did a good job of making the world bleak and its characters either wrought with desperation or saddled with complete hopelessness. It’s clear from a short glance that the characters are either going to try to do something about what they think is wrong with the world or that they are just giving in to their sad state. This sort of emotional communication is a tribute to Alfonso Cuaron’s directorial prowess.
Production 8/10
The very believable and un-cartoony future world of twenty years later is riddled with great props and realistic technology. The semi-post-apocalyptic vibe we get throughout the movie in a very damp London and its surrounding countryside is very convincing. The art direction and production design was excellent.
Overall 5/10
The movie was a brave endeavor, I think. The story is unique (though borrowed from a 1992 book) and worth telling. However, the inundation of political messages (which, I think, the original novel didn’t bother with) and a very average script made it into a long propaganda film that is frustrating to sit through if you don’t drink their particular flavor of Kool Aid. (I have my own favorite flavors of Kool Aid.) Children of Men could have been a much better movie if they focused more on the dilemma at hand and spent less time politicizing everything.
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