Children of Men

I really wanted to like this. I was expecting a sort of crossover between "V for Vendetta" and "1984", but I found the unremitting bleakness of it very hard to take. There seemed to be no real hope (yes, I know the baby was seen to be the hope of mankind, but for me it just didn't play out like that). I found Clive Owen's character confusing at times. In the opening of the film, he refused to have anything to do with getting the travel papers, then suddenly (and as far as I could see, for no reason) he agreed. Why? Did I miss something?
I also think it hit rather uncomfortably close to the current situation, which I'm sure was intended, but made the film al lthe more depressing to me. There weren't any light moments, Michael Caine's character was cruelly underused and I couldn't believe how quickly Julianne Moore's character met her end.
I found it a little unbelievable that a woman whose water had broken could travel as she did, and still manage to give birth. I didn't get the choice of name in the end --- Dylan? Can be both a boy or a girl? I don't know any girls called Dylan. I thought she would have called her baby after Owen's character. Maybe that would have been too obvious?
I suppose it could have been even bleaker, a la 1984 or Brazil, where the baby had died, the "Tomorrow" had been taken over by government agents or whatever, but I still found it very dark, very depressing and hard to watch.
That's not to say it was a bad film, but it would be hard to recommend it to anyone, for me.
 
Watched it a few weeks back on Sky Movies Premiere and although it was a great movie, especially the way the action built and the blood shot on the camera lens, the ending ruined it for me - it was just so crap and lame. :(
 
I actually thought this was quite touching. Bearing in mind that no-one in the whole world had had a baby in 20 odd years, for this crying baby to suddenly appear would be such a shock, all animosity would be temporarily put aside to let this fragile bundle get out of the way.
 
Drew Barrymore's character in Charlie's Angels was called Dylan.

I saw the film when it was on Sky Box Office a few months ago and I was very impressed. I thought it was the best movie i've seen in ages, and i'm usually very hard to please when it comes to films. Although saying that, I don't watch them all that often.
 
Very good especially the combat scenes which were done ala Saving Private Ryan. Shame it ended where it did, as it would have been nice to have known what she was heading too.
 
apart from the minor plot detail of exactly why theyt were running to this unknown Human Project crowd.

if the baby was held with such reverence by everyone, why run?

Iain
 
Bearing in mind the police state they were living in, do you think the mum and baby would've had a lala life of roses and honey if they'd turned themselves in? Maybe a lifelong barrage of tests, poking, prodding and never seeing the outside of a lab.
 
well, the police state was only really sketched in very roughly.

as for tests etc - how else where they going to find out what was different about the mother and child, how was mankind going to be saved?

how was mankind going to be saved - as was alluded to in the ending - by them finding safe passage to the human project?

i just thought it could have been a much better film, if more of the plot had actually been explained.

Iain
 
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