Review of Children of Men (2006) by Multipurpose — 15 Sep 2011

As it has been said, you'll either love or hate this movie. Personally, as I enjoyed it, it's hard to understand why others dislike it. There's talk of poor character development, unanswered questions, etc. The problem is, with character development, if the protagonist goes on the traditional route (naive to weary to underdog to champion to victim etc.) it's completely cliche and it has been done thousands of times. You can go into a movie and you already know exactly how the character is going to react to every plot twist and curve that comes along, and it's boring! You know "well obviously, this every day regular guy is clearly going to reject the ludicrous things he is being told. Then slowly he is going to accept them, then embrace them, then champion them, and then get burned by them, and then redeem them".

So I'm happy when there's this character who comes along, and we don't need to spend an hour watching him reject the plot of the film, only to then embrace it. Not to mention, actually, there is quite a good amount of character development in this movie. I can't be bothered to explain it all, and if you missed it, obviously you weren't paying close enough attention, and that's not the directors or actors fault.

Regarding "unanswered questions". That was one of the themes of the entire movie (besides "hope"). No one knows what's going on. No one knows what the next day will bring. The rest of the civilised world has collapsed. What, did you want some scientist in a doctors coat and big classes, while holding some test tubes, to explain in the last 30 seconds of the movie what caused the sterility of the world, and what caused the female protagonist to become pregnant? These questions were left unanswered because, as is the theme of the movie, no one knows why. Basically, if you go into a movie wanting it to do something, you will always be disappointed, because it won't do what you want. If you go into a movie and strap yourself in and enjoy the ride, you're going to enjoy it. You can't blame a movie for not doing something you want it to do, especially if doing such a thing would destroy the entire theme of the movie. Great movie, 9/10, the cinematography was beautiful, some really professional and inspired work there.