Children of Men Poster

Children of Men (2006)

Drama | Thriller 
Rayting:   7.9/10 467.3K votes
Country: USA | UK
Language: English | German
Release date: 26 October 2006

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which women have become somehow infertile, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea.

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User Reviews

blestang 25 October 2006

this film is one of the best things i have seen this year. It's an improbable cross between "Brazil" "a clockwork orange" and the video game HALF-LIFE2 (from which it borrows it's final sequences and use of on shot action-sequences) it manages to be both entertaining in the Hollywood way (with incredible action sequences and a very clever way of using digital effects) yet very sad and different with a very very dark and realistic overtone. No comic relief, no cartoon character bravery, only human behavior in it's best and most horrible way. This realistic overtone makes the main characters very engaging and moving. CLive owen (whose i have always disliked) is excellent as the man drowned into an adventure too big for him (sorry for my bad English)

It's the same kind of film than V for vendetta (both taking place in a futuristic fascist British society) different from the usual mainstrean studio teenager pleaser crap

GO see it! help intelligent cinema

trpuk1968 23 September 2006

Fmovies: Worthy addition to a very British literary, televisual and cinematic tradition of dystopian and apocalyptic narratives. H.G Wells, John Wyndham, SURVIVORS, 28 DAYS LATER.

These texts are revealing of the times in which they were made. Rather than looking forwards,they re often, at heart, deeply conservative. They frequently express a desire for a world where the centralised, industrial society has broken down entirely, replaced by an agrarian based model comprising small, rural communities. These narratives coincided with the rise in 'alternative ' lifestyles, interest in self sufficiency, organic farming, low technology and a different relationship with the Earth. Nostalgia for a pre Industrial past is more prominent than hope and anticipation of a glorious new future when civilisations been destroyed for a new, better world to emerge.

The grand narratives which we once imagined were going to change and improve the world no longer seem credible. Following the collapse of communism, there's a distrust of ideologies, especially those of the left. Arguably, the left has collapsed in the Western World. Thats the context this film arrives in, one where there seems no meaningfully effective counterbalance to the continued dominance of global capitalism, media saturation and environmental meltdown.

Arguably this film offers some hope but my overall impression is of something a lot bleaker than other apocalypse narratives. Without children there is, literally, no future left. Although emerging from a different context, this film shares with its predecessors a thoroughly revealing indication of the concerns preoccupying the time in which it was made.

Two scenes haunted me. The man in Battersea, isolated with his art collection and the set pieces of the illegal immigrants, rounded up and caged.

The Battersea scene uses its location and choice of Picasso's Gernika painting in the background to make a searing comment on a civilisation which, despite its pretensions to Art and Culture, has managed to engineer its own extinction. A civilisation whose intellectual and cultural elites, instead of challenging the prevailing discourse, isolate themselves, collusive in a form of collective denial.

The illegals scene is composed in such a way as to recreate images from the War on Terror, images which are now iconic. Both scenes link together through use of the painting which is an inspired device. This is definitely a movie to watch and work at. I was also intrigued by the recurring animals, and reminded of Tarkovsky, whose work is consistently loaded with symbolism. The scene at the empty, abandoned school was very reminiscent of the Russian director. Also praiseworthy is the astonishing use of sound, particularly in one of the key scenes when dogs can be heard barking in the distance.

Another haunting image is that of the flowers and wreaths laid very early on, after the youngest person on earth has died. Reminiscent of the mawkishness, sentimentality and mass hysteria of those laying floral tributes to murder victims they never knew, the so called 'Diana effect'. Again, a clear reference to todays world.

This is an outstanding piece of film making, I agree totally with previous reviewers comments, especially regarding the battle scenes, which have an immediacy, bringing to mind COME AND SEE or APOCALYPSE NOW. I ll give the last word to Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian newspapers film critic who called this 'a thinking persons action movie.'

jflet 12 September 2006

This year I attended for the first time the Venice Film Festival in Italy. I was of course quite excited and bought tickets to some screenings of a few different films I found interesting. Initially Children of Men wasn't in my plans but I was convinced by a friend who was very enthusiastic about it. Now I say I'm glad I bought the tickets! What an amazing film this is. The science fiction genre is just a coat to project into the future the horrors and problems of our current days and many films attempt that ending up, in most cases, failing. This one however succeeds. Succeeds indeed but not only in this... The film blew away nearly everyone in the audience as one of the best action movies we have seen lately, with extremely exciting and brutal chases, gun fights, etc. Don't be put off by this though, the film is as good as it is not because of the action sequences but its amazingly emotional and touching story. The performances of the cast is impressive especially Clive Owen and the newcomer Claire Hope Ashitey who throughout the film develop the relationship between their characters and it's such a joy to see the development. I'm not very good at writing reviews so I think I'll stop know, but I had at least to transmit something to everyone who might be interested in watching this film. Don't pass this one, you won't regret it. In my view one of the few excellent films released this year.

darth_random 28 October 2006

Children of Men fmovies. Of all the visions of the future movie audiences have been treated to over the past few years, the world of Children of Men may be the most frightening and allegorically effective yet.

Directed by Alfonso Cauron (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), and set in 2027 London, the film takes place at a time when the planet is in the grip of an infertility crisis. Societies worldwide have collapsed after no children have been born in almost two decades, and the survivors of the ensuing wars, atrocities and civil breakdowns flee to Britain, which still functions under a harsh regime.

Clive Owen (Closer, Sin City) plays Theo, a former activist now working as a paper-pusher in the Ministry of Energy and downing a large amount of Scotch to get him through the day. He walks to work past terrorist bombings, cages filled with illegal immigrants rounded up by riot police, and piles of garbage littering the London streets. When an old flame and revolutionary, played by Julianne Moore, appears with a request that he use his governmental connections to help her move a refugee girl across the country, he agrees on the basis he be compensated. When he discovers that the girl (Kee, played by Claire-Hope Ashitey) is pregnant, his mission takes on new dimensions.

Cauron and his team of production designers have created what is, perhaps, the most believable vision of the future seen in quite some time. Advanced technology exists side by side with squalor, and is never allowed to steal the audiences attention away from the proceedings for too long. As far as being a realistic portrayal of Britain in twenty years time, the film is light years ahead of last year's disappointing V for Vendetta, which stripped away British iconography and culture and essentially kept London as a rather two-dimensional metaphor for the United States.

As a thriller, the film is blisteringly intense and incredibly effective. From the bomb blast that caps off the opening credits to the frenzied urban warfare sequences that dominate the film's closing thirty minutes, Cauron never lets the film lag. Though it slows down enough to deal with character development and exposition, the film maintains a running intensity as Theo and Kee try to stay one step ahead of terrorists, the police, the army and random opportunists. Several action scenes are shot in continuous takes, and make for compelling and electrifying viewing.

However, the film works as a socio-political drama as well. Though Cauron's two central messages (that immigrants enrich, rather than threaten, Western society, and that the outlook for human survival is dim when operatives on all sides let ideology displace compassion and good judgment) are strongly put, he is never so heavy-handed that they dominate or displace the actual storyline. Similarly, while the film makes numerous metaphorical references to present-day events, they are never so contrived as to derail the narrative.

The film features solid performances from Clive Owen, who is at his rugged, rumpled best, and Julianne Moore. Supporting players also do well: Michael Caine is terrific as Theo's pot-growing hippie friend, the versatile Chiwitel Ejiofor is again in fine form as a revolutionary cell leader, and Pam Ferris is also good as another of Kee's protectors. It is, however, Claire-Hope Ashitey who stands out as the illegal immigrant who may well be humanity's hope for the future.

Children of Men is packed with explosive action, incendiary social commentary and some wh

Philby-3 6 November 2006

Alfonso Cuaron has given us a very clever rendering of a very English dystopian novel. P D James, the "Baroness of Bad" is famous for her well-written and absorbing police procedural novels ("Inspector Dalgliesh") but in the early 90s she produced a vision of a world only 20 years into the future in which for unspecified reasons all the women on earth have become infertile and no babies have been born for the last 18 years.

The rest of the world has lapsed into chaos but the British, stoically, have put the remainder of their civil liberties into the fire and have settled down under an oppressive dictatorship to ward off foreign boarders and await inevitable extinction, though there are some violent dissidents called the fish.

Theo (Clive Owen), a journalist with connections to the top, is "persuaded" by his ex-wife and fish member Julian (Julianne Moore) to obtain some exit papers for Kee (Claire Hope Ashity) a young black woman, who, it turns out, is pregnant. Theo is swept up in Kee's escape across a grim decaying landscape. Not only are there the security forces to contend with, but some equally ruthless insurgents. Cuaron builds the tension exquisitely, interspersing the adrenaline fueled bits with quieter bits.

Kee' projected saviors are a mysterious group called the Human Project who conveniently sail their well-maintained Greenpeace style ex-North Sea fishing trawler past offshore light buoys in the hope of rescuing the human race. But the improbability of this doesn't matter much because by the end of the movie Cuaron has effectively demonstrated what the world would be like if humankind suddenly stopped reproducing. Having children is our way of cheating death, without them there is nothing but death, and in this future there are none about but the living dead.

The casting is pretty well perfect. Clive Owen as Theo puts his haunted good looks to good use as he turns from cynical reporter to a hunted enemy of the state. The motley characters he meets along the way – his ex-wife, the fish rebels, the refugees who help him, the "fascist pig" border guard and above all Michael Caine's aging hippie are all wonderfully realized.

It has been suggested that Cuaron has really made a film about today, not 20 years into the future. The rampaging security forces we see might as well be in Bosnia or Iraq, or even Northern Ireland. In an age of terrorism, order without law very quickly becomes tyranny, which has never been the answer to terrorism. What he and PD James do demonstrate is just how fragile our civil society is.

As a film this is a very fine piece of work. The sets exude grimy Britain, the battles are hair-raising, the quieter moments intense. Cuaron would do a great James Bond movie. He has turned a rather rarefied novel into an exiting and engrossing thriller without obscuring the original message. He is a very versatile and enterprising film-maker and I'm sure he's going to do lots more good stuff.

green_fairy2 2 September 2006

I've seen this film and let me tell everyone that it was one of the most pleasurable surprises I've ever had with a film. I hadn't heard about it before and it totally took me by surprise. It blew me away and left me speechless. The acting is excellent by most of the actors, but Michael Caine deserves to receive a special mention for his amazing portrait of the old hippie Jasper. His performance is fantastic and he totally stole the show in the scenes he was in. Claire Hope is also fantastic in the role of Kee. Her performance is quite impressive, especially considering this is one of her first films. Clive Owen is also great as the reluctant hero who sees his life turned upside down and is given a huge responsibility. I've seen him in some other films and he's at his best here. A very good performance, you could feel what he was going through. In the technical aspects the film was brilliant, particularly Alfonso Cuarón's strong and consistent direction that is one of the best things in the film, and contributes a lot to its quality. Also director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki does wonders with images and there are some extremely beautiful shots all done in a naturalistic way, natural lighting, etc. It's an extremely well crafted film that makes you go through the emotional struggle the characters go through and makes you feel that you're in the middle of it all. Besides, it's also an extremely touching story that certainly touched my heart. One of the best films I've ever seen without any doubt.

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