I wanted to see this in theatres..very badly. I waited it was supposed to be released the 25th..I checked listings nothing. I checked again yesterday and nothing so I gave in to my urges. Two weeks prior there was a release on the internet and I downloaded it.This is the first time I've been so excited over a movie since probably I saw "King Kong," last year and I was giddy to sit down and watch it. Tonight I did.
BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR.
Let me state that I haven't seen ALL of the movies this year but I've seen a decent amount and this movie is just amazing and blows them all out of the water.
Basic plot: Women no longer can have children, there is no hope left. Spontaneously a young woman known as Kee is pregnant and a group tries to get the girl and her child to the "Human Project." Theo (Clive Owen,) and others face all sorts of objects trying to get her there. The movie also stars Michael Caine as Jasper, a retired political cartoonist friend of Theo's and Julianne Moore as Theo's Ex-Wife/Leader of the group.
The main focus of this movie isn't about why women are infertile, or how they will become fertile again and to justify that we never learn the answers to either. This movie is about having hope when there's no hope to be found. In other words, don't be pissed when the credits start rolling and you don't have a reason as to why women became infertile cause I know some people will be. Like I said this movie is about hope.
The acting in the movie is wonderful. Clive Owen is one of my top 5 favorite actors now. He fucking NAILS the role of Theo and plays it wonderfully. He's amazing. Everyone else does a wonderful job as well especially Claire-Hope Ashity as Kee. Overall the acting is wonderful all over the board...
Alfonso Cuaron directs and I love everything about his approach to the movie. The style he wanted it shot in, the direction he took the script in. Everything. He has amazed me and is one of my favorite directors now as well. I am now planning on looking into everything I've missed of his thanks to the brilliance of "Children of Men."
Now onto what I really love about this movie: The way it is shot. Very long shots with a hand held. No quick cuts. Just lots of long shots. It's amazing to watch and I wish more movies were made like this. There's a couple of action scenes in the movie and they benefit amazingly from this style of filming. When you have the camera rolling for so long without the cuts it makes you forget your watching a movie. Because of this style you FEEL like you're right there with Theo and the rest running around being shot at, driving around and so forth. The end has one of the single most amazing shots I've ever seen in it and it was one of the most intense things to sit through. I won't ruin it for you but Theo is running around and the camera follows him for 7 minutes without cutting. It's unbelievable. THEN to follow that up they do a neat invisible cut/edit and go into another bunch of extremely long scenes. It's incredible..
What is this? Uh-oh..confession time. It's not so bad..BUT I was almost shedding some tears in the end. It's a very emotional movie. It's hard to explain...for me the movie didn't feel epic. Not epic at all but at the same time there was an emotional involvement, I guess from being totally immersed in this world. All I have to say is that "Children of Men," was very moving to me and it almost got me shedding some tears and at the moment I can't think of any movie that's ever done that so that's saying a lot.
I admit...I've been going nuts for this movie since July when I saw the first trailer but I really don't think I'm exaggerating or letting all that predetermined hyped get in the way when I say this movie is brilliant. My advice to you is if you can see this on the big screen do yourself and go fucking see it. From what I read it's only in limited release this week. January 5th is the date for the wide release. If this is true and it does begin playing in my area I'm going to see it on the big screen anyways, even though by then I will probably have seen it three times or more. Go and see it...it will be well worth the money.
Numerical Review: 10 out of 10
IMDB link for "Children of Men."
