DVD Reviews

DVD Review: Children of Men

By Jeff Swindoll Mar 27, 2007, 13:47 GMT

No children. No future. No hope. In the year 2027, eighteen years since the last baby was born, disillusioned Theo (Clive Owen) becomes an unlikely champion of the human race when he is asked by his former lover (Julianne Moore) to escort a young pregnant woman out of the country as quickly as possible. In a thrilling race against time, Theo will risk everything to deliver the miracle the whole world ...more

In a world without hope and where the population is infertile, one man struggles to take the world’s only pregnant female to safety.

It’s the year 2027 and mankind stopped reproducing 18 years ago. The world is a miserable place and the last form of any civilization is in England. The youngest human, an eighteen-year-old named Baby Diego, has been killed and the world grows even deeper into depression. Disillusioned Theo (Clive Owen) is drawn into the Fishes. They’re a revolutionary group that is run by his ex-wife Julian (Julianne Moore) and she wants him to transport a girl named Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) to an unknown location. Theo has a cousin (Danny Huston) who can get him the proper travel papers since only English citizens are allowed to travel and foreigners are rounded up and put in concentration camps.

Julian, Theo, Miriam (Pam Ferris), and Luke (Chiwetel Ejiofor) start off on the journey but tragedy ends up cutting their journey short. Theo also discovers that Kee is pregnant and he knows that he has to get her away from the Fishes, who have ulterior motives, and to a safe location. He sets off on the journey with the help of his ex-hippy friend Jasper (Michael Caine), but can he get Kee to safety and give the world hope again?

Children of Men paints a very bleak vision of the future and shows us a world in chaos and without children and hope. The sudden revelation that a child is expected is a light in the wilderness that inspires those that happen to know of the impending birth.

Theo is such a man who finds himself given new hope by providing transport and safety to the new mother and the child that is inside her. This vision of the future is not the happy one that we expect out of Star Trek and other films that show us a future that has such advanced technology that people are happy and healthy. This is more along the lines of Soylent Green or where the Earth is running out of resources and the people are dirty, depressed, and disenchanted.

Clive Owen plays his part well as a man who has lost all hope and eventually finds a reason for hope in the form of Kee. He turns from doing the job of transporting her just for the cash to becoming her protector in that he would sacrifice himself to make sure that she will make it to safety. Michael Caine adds a bit of comic relief as the old hippy, but the sense of a horrible future still overcomes his minor attempts at comedy. Although this film paints a depressing vision of the future, the film is still a good action adventure that eventually ends on a note that a better future lies ahead for this time period.

Children of Men is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include 2 minutes of deleted scenes, which are pretty insubstantial. Next is the 27-minute “The Possibility of Hope.” It has interviews with philosopher/cultural critic Slavoj Zizek, anti-globalization activist Naomi Klein, philosopher/historian Tzvetan Todorov, human geographer Fabrizio Eva, sociologist of human migrations (?) Saskia Sassen, philosopher/economist John Gray, and scientist/futurologist James Lovelock.

They talk about our impending doom for 21 minutes and then offer us 6 minutes of half-hearted hope. Next is 5 minutes of comments by Slavoj Zizek that focus solely on the movie. The 7 minute “Under Attack” begins the interviews with the filmmakers and we hear from director Alfonso Cuaron, Clive Owen, producer Eric Newman, camera operator Frank Buono, Julianne Moore, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and stunt coordinator Steve Dent.

The 4-minute “Theo and Julian” focuses on the relationship of the two characters and adds comments from producer Marc Abraham. The 8-minute “Futuristic Design” focuses on the production design of the film and interviews producer Hilary Shor, set designer Jennifer Williams, production designer Jim Clay, and costume designer Jany Temime. “Visual Effects: Creating the Baby” runs 3 minutes and shows how they digitally created the birth and baby in the film.

This future Britain reminded me, to some degree, of the one in V for Vendetta. So if you liked that one then you might want to check this one out. Although the film is very depressing for the most part, Children of Men does finally get around to showing us that hope can be found. I thought it was a good movie, but expect to feel a midge depressed afterwards (especially if you watch the movie and then the eggheads tell us we’re all doomed).