Thursday, September 27, 2007

Children of men - the movie

I watched Children of Men on DVD last night. I was luke warm about the book - the first part was moving and interesting, but the plot resolution in the second half was lame and unbelievable. The film is indescribably bad. The Mexican director, Alfonso Cuaron, has been lauded for his approach, but he has produced a routine thriller with poor continuity. The characters retain only their names. The poignancy of a world without children has been completely lost; the religious sensitivity of PD James has been trampled on; and teh director has highjacked the story to make a left-wing statement about illegal immigrants and Guantanamo Bay. If you want to watch this film, I would advise not switching on the sub-titles. That way about half the profanities will go unheard.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

First of all, I haven't read the book. As a busy American (we work harder than any other developed country in the world), I don't have time to slog through a tedious book as has been described.

No, the movie wasn't great. It was way heavy on the idea that there should be open borders, and no countries. One should just be able to switch countries on a whim (which I don't agree with, of course).

But I will say that the look of the film was very good. The urban battle scenes were quite good, and quite believable. I was surprised at the veracity of those scenes.

There were, however, big enough holes in the plot to drive an Abrams tank through. And some of the scenes were just silly.

But enough of the film worked for me (apart from the book, which I can't speak to) for me to mildly recommend it. Forget the plot and the 'message', and appreciate one of a dwindling number of decent science fiction films. So few are being made these days.