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Children of Men
Following on from such films as Equilibrium and War of the Worlds,
Children of Men shows a depressing outlook for the future; due to
changing genetics, women are unable to conceive and pregnant women
have miscarriages around the world. This wipes out a whole generation
and the world is comprised of grumpy old buggers. Even the youngest
person in the world is famous and a celebrity. But of course, apart
from the depressing though that within decades the human population
will be entirely wiped out due to the fact that new generations cannot
be produced it has other implications; immigrants flocking to certain
countries in order to escape and being kept in pens and general
rioting and panic. Oh, plus Pampers is out of business.
The story is set mostly in London, which I personally like because
being English, I can relate to the surroundings more than yellow taxi
cabs and Dollars (not that I have anything against them!). The main
protagonist played by Clive Owen is a regular kind of working guy, bit
rough around the edges, but genuinely means well. The plot follows
him, Julianne Moore (who plays a character called Julianne and is
probably the hottest 46 year old female that I know of!) Micheal Caine
also lends his rather monotone voice but portrays a really likable
character. There's also some new woman that I've never heard of,
this woman holds the key to save humanity, as being the only person in
the world that is known to be pregnant. The fact that she's pregnant
is kept under wraps, literally and non-literally and as you'd expect,
if the word got out she'd be under hot demand to be put under every
needle and microscope under the sun.
Therefore, the core story projects a set of rather fluffy moral
viewpoints, should she keep on running with the hope of having more
babies and the hope that they will too in time be able to conceive? Or
give herself up to be a lab rat in order for scientist to crack the
gene in her body that is making her able to conceive? The protagonist
first chooses the latter, but then ends up doing the former by helping
her on the run and by protecting her.
The film has some fantastic scenes in it, some of them are almost
intentionally quick, gritty and realistic, such as the scene when the
party of friends are on the run, when they are stopped by a burning
car which is shoved into the middle of the road and out of nowhere an
angry mob comes out of the woods with molotovs, and generally cheesed
off about not being able to live in proper civilisation and just out
to cause trouble. They get out the motorbikes, start shooting, and
are eventually fobbed off. Luckily the local police are quick to
question the fleeing innocent characters and just about when the cops
are about to let them go, the parties' driver shoots both of the
police and drives off. It's a lot to take in, but it happens pretty
quickly and leaves you wondering that if you were unfortunate enough
to be in that situation, that's how it would happen, really quickly
and leave you wondering if it even happened at all.
A couple of other scenes really stand out in the film, for pure
believability and entertainment, such as when the local militia try to
enforce order on the civilian resistance. The main character although
walking through a warzone, does not even pick up a weapon at all but
flees through the scene dodging bullets in an altogether believable
way of how a normal person would react in the situation. I also
noticed the reluctance for the camera to switch scenes, it was an
incredible feat (in either editing or actual filming) because the
entire action scene seemed to be one fluid shot, which really added to
the realism and my engrossment in the film.
The sound is brilliant, from the ringing sound from tank shock, that
you'd expect from a tank shell exploding near you, to the bullets
flying everywhere.
Overall, a pretty decent film.
3.0 / 4.0
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