Children of Men

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which man can no longer procreate, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea where her child's birth may help scientists save the future of mankind.

IMDB

Trailer (sorry bout it being from youtube, but apple.com doesn't work for me for this trailer, so just in case)

Official Site

I have to say that I like the sound of this movie. It's an interesting prospect; man cannot reproduce, and so there wont be a next generation. The trailer does make it look like it could be an interesting film, but we shall wait and see.

Dont be at yourself

It does look pretty decent, a great premise, and I do like Clive Owen. Fingers crossed!

BlitzKrieg

reminds me sort of the premise of hlaf life 2...the whole city 17, unable to reproduce element. (which i felt was among the strongest elements for cinematic adaptation) I defitnally like the look of the film.

Diogenes

It's dystopian semi futuristic london looks better than V for Vendetta. This must be the year of dystopian futuristic movies set in a brutal tolaterian UK.

Mentioning V this could be the film V should have been.

djkeogh

Liking the Idea of this film. Solid director and cast looks like It could be up there as a great one this year. Fingers crossed.

lostexpectation

looks deadly does remind me of half-life too, the meme of urban conflict

Nevyn

Looks good but reminds me of a older film, simular story line.

Diogenes

Thaedydal wrote:

Looks good but reminds me of a older film, simular story line.

The Handmaiden's Tail?

calex71

Trailer wasnt what i was expecting at all, bit whit the camera inside the car when the petrol bomb is thrown was pretty well done.

Nevyn

No not the Handmaidens Tale, that is a really good verison of Margert Atwoods book mind.
I really can't recall the title of it but it was one man trying to get a mother with a preborn babe to the shore to becollected by a boat.
Only in that one the fetus/embryo was in a tank and was to be take to where there was someone with a viabile womb to gestate it and it was clearly post nuclear war with canibal tribles.
Damn I remember it so vividly but not the title would have been late 80s early 90s.

BlitzKrieg

its not that jean claude van damme film where he's an android escourting some woman? (was it jean claude?)

Dont be at yourself

You've probably just described every Jean Claude Van Damme film there is with that one

Nevyn

nope wasn't cyborg, damn it this is going to bug me till I figure it out

Diogenes

Thaedydal wrote:

nope wasn't cyborg, damn it this is going to bug me till I gigure it out

Hell it's bugging me I was sure it was Handmadien's tale!

Who's in it? Where's it set?

Curse you wikipedia and your filmsy dystopian movie section, hasn't even got city of lost children.

Crucifix

Wow, that does look good. Hearing the premise I wasn't particularly interested but the trailer took me in.

Nevyn

Diogenes wrote:

Hell it's bugging me I was sure it was Handmadien's tale!

Nope I own that book and film

Diogenes wrote:

Who's in it? Where's it set?

It was set in america and I can't recall anyone in it, one of those lo budget but good 80s scifi films.

Vokes

Thaedydal, is this it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%2C_After_the_Fall_of_New_York
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085125/


Looking forward to Children of Men, trailer looks awesome

Nevyn

wow fair play Sofaking, I do think that's it. http://badmovies.org/movies/2019after/
Mind It looks a lot worse then I remember but then again I watched in college as part of our slasher/gore/scifi/zombie vid fests and I would have been decidedly not sober at the time.

I am looking forward to seeing children of man.

DapperGent

I enjoyed the book, it's by PD James and well worth a look. Apart from the premise I remember it being calm and understated with decent characterisation, rang very true in a lot of ways.

I wonder how much fúcking they're going to do with it.

Vokes

Thaedydal wrote:

wow fair play Sofaking, I do think that's it. http://badmovies.org/movies/2019after/

I haven't seen it, but from reading that synopsis it sounds absolutely mental! And the dvd is only 1.50pounds on Amazon.

Diogenes

Thaedydal wrote:

wow fair play Sofaking, I do think that's it. http://badmovies.org/movies/2019after/
Mind It looks a lot worse then I remember but then again I watched in college as part of our slasher/gore/scifi/zombie vid fests and I would have been decidedly not sober at the time.

I am looking forward to seeing children of man.

I was waaayyyyyy off with Margaret Atwood...........

Nevyn

Diogenes wrote:

I was waaayyyyyy off with Margaret Atwood...........

/me giggles.

Just a tad, that film makes a handmaiden's tale seem like a serious film based
on social extrapolation

Diogenes

Thaedydal wrote:

/me giggles.

Just a tad, that film makes a handmaiden's tale seem like a serious film based
on social extrapolation

Which part didn't you buy;

A fundamentalist society taking the book of Jod literally?

Or Martin Sheen as a fundamentalist christian?

weemcd

Anyone have an idea why the mobbs would be trying to kill the one woman who may be the key to saving humanity?

seems a bit odd to me.

Diogenes

weemcd wrote:

Anyone have an idea why the mobbs would be trying to kill the one woman who may be the key to saving humanity?

seems a bit odd to me.

Glancing at the blurb of the book that its based on, there are alot of apocalyptical cults in the world, people who believe aliens or the rapture is at end, so maybe thats their beef.

The Book is incidently children of men, and it's by PD James. Not normally the kind of author I go for (never buy a book where the author's name is in larger type than the title, is a motto thats served me well) The world is quite different in the book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children_of_Men Things are more peaceful theres a beign dictatorship, very little crime.
Alfonso Cuarón obviously beefed that up.

weemcd

Diogenes wrote:

Glancing at the blurb of the book that its based on, there are alot of apocalyptical cults in the world, people who believe aliens or the rapture is at end, so maybe thats their beef.

Thanks for clearing that up, i does look like a decent film though. I like the bit with him on the train, I just thought boring old sh!t, then the yob throws a brick or something at the train and it all changes. :D

Nevyn

Diogenes wrote:

Which part didn't you buy;

A fundamentalist society taking the book of Jod literally?

Or Martin Sheen as a fundamentalist christian?

It wasn't Martin Sheen it was Robert Duvall and I think that the senario in the handmaidens tale is scarily plausible tbh.

I am looking forward to children of men for lots of reason prolly no chance of seeing clive owen in just a towel this one.....

Diogenes

Thaedydal wrote:

It wasn't Martin Sheen it was Robert Duvall and I think that the senario in the handmaidens tale is scarily plausible tbh.

Bugger you're right. What film am I thinking of staring Martin Sheen as a religious fanatic, or in a post apocaplyse type scenario. Bollocks if I'm shopping through his IMDB profile, reviewing Martin Sheen, movie career between Apocaplyse Now and the West Wing, is a horrifying prospect. :eek:

I am looking forward to children of men for lots of reason prolly no chance of seeing clive owen in just a towel this one.....

He looks kinda old tired and fat in it btw.

Nevyn

Oh come on there are some gems in there like
Apocalypse Pooh http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0201428/
and Cadance which was released under the name Stockade over here
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101531/

He looks kinda old tired and fat in it btw.

That would be deliberate as he is a repasentation of his world gone to seed.

Diogenes

Thaedydal wrote:

me wrote:

He looks kinda old tired and fat in it btw.

That would be deliberate as he is a repasentation of his world gone to seed.

I've got to use that as a defence when the girlfriend says I look shabby...

Anywho the film was in Venice this week, and Peter Bradshaw the usually highly trustworthy film critic for the Guardian gave it two large thumbs up;

PD James's future-nightmare novel of a world without children has been turned into an explosively violent and chillingly real movie, probably the best film in the Venice festival competition so far. It is directed by Alfonso Cuarón and brilliantly filmed in hard, flat, crisp detail by his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki.

The digitally realised vision of a reactionary, Orwellian Britain in 2027, with its seedy streetscapes periodically smashed by terrorist bombs, is eerily convincing, and the spectacular sequences of all-out urban warfare are electrifying and very scary.


Cuarón has sweetened the outlook of James's book a little, but that doesn't prevent an Arctic mood of fear and horror pouring out of the screen.

Clive Owen plays Theo, an ex-radical who is now an alcoholic with a drab job in a government office: a miserable guy in a miserable world. Centuries of pollution have caused humans to become infertile - the world's youngest person is all of 18 - and the realisation that the end of the line is nigh has led to a global malaise of despair and disorder.

Britain is toughing it out, clamping down on dissent and offering its citizens free suicide pills with the Shakespearian brand-name of Quietus; its relative calm and prosperity have brought waves of immigrants who are brutally herded into internment camps on the coast.

Theo is contacted by a former comrade and lover Julian (Julianne Moore) now the leader of a revolutionary underground movement demanding equal rights for refugees. She has a sensational secret: a young girl they have found called Kee (Clare-Hope A****ey) is pregnant, and the movement wants to exploit her for their own ends. Kee is scared by their fanaticism, and Theo helps her escape.

There is something very British in this vision, simultaneously post-apocalyptic and pre-apocalyptic. It has something of both 1984 and John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids, and it reminded me of Barry Hines's nuclear nightmare Threads and the 70s British television classic Survivors. Cuarón gets good performances out of A****ey and Owen, the dishevelled and seedy guy who rediscovers his idealism and romanticism playing Joseph to a terrified young Mary, who, as she crisply informs him, is far from being a virgin.

There are great cameos, chiefly one from Michael Caine as an ageing hippy who grows ganja in a secret woodland hideout and hooks Theo up with a counter-cultural support network.

Peter Mullan puts in a bravura appearance as Syd, a border guard and one of Caine's weed clientele, who is able to smuggle them away from both the authorities and the terrorists. It's a smart and funny performance from the multi-talented Mullan, and it would incidentally be good to see him direct another film, as his last one, The Magdalene Sisters, won the Golden Lion here at Venice in 2002.

Apart from everything else, this is a great action film, with thrilling and nail-biting moments that are all the more gripping for taking place in a ruined future world, which looks all too plausible. Added to this is Cuarón's subtle dimension of metaphor and parable: it is humankind's spiritual sterility and vanity which has made possible their catastrophic despoiling of the planet. This is quite an achievement for Cuarón, who must surely be a contender for the big prize.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/festivals/news/0,,1864443,00.html

Name checking Orwell, Threads, and getting a good performance from Caine.

Now I'm really looking forward to this.

Vokes

+ a mention of one of my all time fave fims (Day of the Triffids).

Nice review - really looking forward to it.

constitutionus

Diogenes wrote:

Bugger you're right. What film am I thinking of staring Martin Sheen as a religious fanatic, or in a post apocaplyse type scenario. Bollocks if I'm shopping through his IMDB profile, reviewing Martin Sheen, movie career between Apocaplyse Now and the West Wing, is a horrifying prospect. :eek:



He looks kinda old tired and fat in it btw.

wouldnt be "the dead zone" would it? got it out of the liberary recently. plays a right religious nutter in the end of it who starts of world war 3

saw the trailer for children of men on apple a while back and i have to admit its a kick in the arse. i had no expectations for this film and now i'd happily go see it. for some reason i really liked the effect on the populace when they announce the youngest man alive has died (at 18!)

could be a really good hit here, though may be a sleeper

mike65

Bump!

This gets its non subscription UK premier on ITV4 (of all places) Tuesday at 10 pm.

spank_inferno

Thats quite a long bump!

Terrific film though, I loved the bleakness of it all, with just a ray of hope.

Does anyone know from the source material the resolution to the story?
Was the human race saved somehow or was it just left like the movie left it?