Review

By: Dale Grauman

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'Children of Men' Offers
Vague Warning, Vivid Images

"Children of Men" by director Alfonso Cuaron depicts a world in
which humans cannot reproduce.

Where is man headed? Director Alfonso Cuaron tries to answer this question in his film "Children of Men," which looks forward to 2027 when mankind is plagued by a mysterious infertility epidemic.

Adapted from the P.D. James novel, the story takes place in London, as Great Britain remains the only functioning society in a volatile world. Perhaps due to overpopulation, although the movie does not clarify, soldiers round up illegal immigrants (colloquially referred to as "fugees") and bus them to concentration camps.

The story focuses on Theo (Clive Owen), an apathetic, foul-mouthed, white-collar drone who wears a stubble beard and carries a bottle of bourbon in his jacket pocket.

Theo's ex-wife Julian (Julianne Moore), an immigrants' rights activist, pays him to help escort an illegal immigrant, Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), to the coast. Theo soon learns that Kee is pregnant with mankind's first child in 18 years.

Now Theo must protect Kee from the government and violent revolutionaries who would exploit her and the baby for political leverage.

The future, according to Cuaron, is indeed a grim one. Although Britain is society's final refuge, London is in chaos complete with terror bombings, chain-link immigrant fences, and billboards advertising suicide pills. Despair permeates the scene as mankind cannot forget that extinction is only a generation away.

Like most futuristic stories, "Children of Men" is really a commentary about the present. Three important protagonists -- Theo, Julian, and Theo's sagely hippy friend, Jasper (Michael Caine), -- were all political dissidents in the early 21st century, and Theo laments that the world was beyond hope even before the infertility epidemic, which began in 2009.

In one scene, a disk jockey refers to 2003 as "that beautiful time when people refused to accept that the future was just around the corner."

Bible college students will quickly pick up Christian allusions in the movie. A street-corner preacher shouts through a megaphone that infertility is God's judgment, and a legitimate parallel runs between Kee's child of hope and the infant Jesus. The title phrase, "children of men," occurs 23 times in the King James Old Testament, and it probably refers to Psalm 21 where David proclaims that God will destroy his enemies' descendents.

Other religions appear throughout the movie, and Kee's midwife practices several simultaneously. The movie does not, however, make any bold claims about Christianity or God's nature. Rather, the writers evoke a sense of spirituality to augment a political theme; we are at an epoch and might stray to a literal dead end.

Although the politics were unconvincing, the cinematography was phenomenal. One audience member said he actually felt he was in danger, and the entire audience groaned when Theo thumped a pursuer with a car battery. The movie is rated R, so leave the kids at home, but based on the intriguing plot and top-notch visuals, this one is worth watching.

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