Day 6: Children of Men (2006)

Peter Travers said it was the second best film of the decade. That's a lot to live up to.

Starring: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine
Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón

The Positives:

- First and foremost, Michael Caine is fantastic, as always. I'm almost ready to forgive him for 'Jaws: The Revenge'.
- It's the little things I find most effective. Early in the film, a woman who appears from a bombed site missing an arm and screaming not only made an impact on me but also set up the tone for the rest of the film.
- Is that Banksy's 'British Cops Kissing' I spy?
- Julianne Moore gets hotter and hotter the older she gets, like a ginger Benjamin Button. With breasts.
- The best part about 'Children of Men is probably the way the movie was filmed. The camera never cuts away from Clive Owen during the action scenes, keeping the threats and other important characters in the background or off-camera at all time. Each and every lengthy single-shot sequence is beautiful, and Cuarón makes great use of them. The highlight of this technique is the car ambush scene. Since the camera never moved from inside the car, the sequence had quite the claustrophobic feel and I must say it was thrilling. It also made events like the flaming car wreck and the motorbike flipping over the hood all the more realistic.
- When Julian died, I cared. When Jasper died, I cared. It's not everyday you watch a movie that makes you feel something every single time a character dies. Especially characters that have all of about ten minutes of screen time.
- The final single-shot sequence of Theo running though the decimated city's war zone is horrifying, suspenseful, chaotic, beautiful, awe-inspiring and, dare I say, perfect.

The Negatives:

- This is an excellent film, no doubt, so all the negatives I found below are really just nitpicking:
- At times, the movie was a bit slow, but it never lost my interest.
- I can't stand it when films set in the future give the dates events take place. The movie kind of loses it edge when you say something shall happen by 2009, and you're watching it in 2011 knowing that the events described didn't even come close to happening. I feel it's much more effective to just say "In the not too distant future." (Though in a movie dealing with specific ages of characters, I understand that dates are at times required.)


Grade: A

Six days in and we already have an 'A'-worthy film. Congrats, Alfonso Cuarón. You've created a dystopian masterpiece.