Our life, the world we build for us, our entire system works on our hope for the future. All our plans, expectations, speculations are based from future's point of view. But what if there was no future to look forward to? With no hope for the coming tomorrow, our system would slowly but surely decay and collapse. This is the premise on which Children of Men is based.
The movie starts with the protagonist viewing a news report in a bar. Its the news of a famous celebrity who passed away. Its a kid. He was famous because he was the last kid to be born. In the future, mankind has inexplicably lost the ability to give birth. Everyone has, for some reason become sterile. And this has lead to a slow but certain Global Meltdown. As the protagonist comes out of the bar and walks away, there is a blast in the bar. It is one of the regularly carried out arsonous acts carried out by the Foogies (for Refugees) against a totalitarian government regime.
This is how the movie starts. The lead protagonist's ex-wife asks him a favour. He has to arrange for a pass to get someone out of the country. He manages to get the pass, but it turns out, he will have to personally escort that someone. Somewhere on the way, things take a turn for the worse. And while trying to cope with the sudden turn of events, he realizes that his mission is much more important and critical than it appears.
The story is based in a hypothetical future. So it certainly is a Sci-Fi movie, but without the aliens and the hi-tech stuff. And the story never really explores the why and the how of the apparently sudden sterility of the entire human race. It has some very breath-taking action. But its not your usual action flick. The direction ensures that the main theme of the movie never gets lost in the action scenes and the depiction of a future gone bad.
The movie starts with a bang but soon looses momentum for a while, as the stage is set, and the character-building happens. This initial character and story-building is nice if you don't mind the slow pace. And then suddenly the movie picks up speed. And then it hardly ever slows down...
The protagonist has to get involved in lots of action and intrigue. But he is never depicted as an action hero. He is a normal empathetic human who is doing what has to be done, like a normal human. neither are the antagonist portrayed as totally evil. The characters in this movie are more realistic shades of grey, instead of the usually shallow black and white ones that most simplified movie plots depict.
The director Alfonso Cuarón (director of the famous recent movie Gravity), pretty nicely depicts a world where hope is lost and all is shot to hell. And yet, we are shown the human side of things, where common people try to survive against all hopelessness and unnecessary violence. Even the violence is depicted with empathy, where we feel the unnecessariness of it, and the shock of its sad aftermath. And in spite of its dark dreary background, the movie gives us a message: that however dark and hopeless the future may appear, there is always hope...
On the whole its a pretty decent flick. Much better than your run of the mill Sci-fi action movies that attract so much audience. This is certainly not for everyone. But if you like sensitive movies, that add a pack of pretty slick action, pace and suspense, then you will certainly enjoy this movie the way I did.
The movie starts with the protagonist viewing a news report in a bar. Its the news of a famous celebrity who passed away. Its a kid. He was famous because he was the last kid to be born. In the future, mankind has inexplicably lost the ability to give birth. Everyone has, for some reason become sterile. And this has lead to a slow but certain Global Meltdown. As the protagonist comes out of the bar and walks away, there is a blast in the bar. It is one of the regularly carried out arsonous acts carried out by the Foogies (for Refugees) against a totalitarian government regime.
This is how the movie starts. The lead protagonist's ex-wife asks him a favour. He has to arrange for a pass to get someone out of the country. He manages to get the pass, but it turns out, he will have to personally escort that someone. Somewhere on the way, things take a turn for the worse. And while trying to cope with the sudden turn of events, he realizes that his mission is much more important and critical than it appears.
The story is based in a hypothetical future. So it certainly is a Sci-Fi movie, but without the aliens and the hi-tech stuff. And the story never really explores the why and the how of the apparently sudden sterility of the entire human race. It has some very breath-taking action. But its not your usual action flick. The direction ensures that the main theme of the movie never gets lost in the action scenes and the depiction of a future gone bad.
The movie starts with a bang but soon looses momentum for a while, as the stage is set, and the character-building happens. This initial character and story-building is nice if you don't mind the slow pace. And then suddenly the movie picks up speed. And then it hardly ever slows down...
The protagonist has to get involved in lots of action and intrigue. But he is never depicted as an action hero. He is a normal empathetic human who is doing what has to be done, like a normal human. neither are the antagonist portrayed as totally evil. The characters in this movie are more realistic shades of grey, instead of the usually shallow black and white ones that most simplified movie plots depict.
The director Alfonso Cuarón (director of the famous recent movie Gravity), pretty nicely depicts a world where hope is lost and all is shot to hell. And yet, we are shown the human side of things, where common people try to survive against all hopelessness and unnecessary violence. Even the violence is depicted with empathy, where we feel the unnecessariness of it, and the shock of its sad aftermath. And in spite of its dark dreary background, the movie gives us a message: that however dark and hopeless the future may appear, there is always hope...
On the whole its a pretty decent flick. Much better than your run of the mill Sci-fi action movies that attract so much audience. This is certainly not for everyone. But if you like sensitive movies, that add a pack of pretty slick action, pace and suspense, then you will certainly enjoy this movie the way I did.
My Ratings: 4
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