Review of Children of Men (2006) by Brian T — 12 Aug 2012

I can't believe how highly most people rate this film. I thought it was awful to be honest. I am very open minded with films, but I couldn't get past the premise.

Firstly, all women are infertile by 2009, every woman in every crevice of the world. That means a genetic shift in the space of a few years when genetics are obsessed with survival of the species and it takes 100,000 years for something large to change genetically.

Then we have the state of society. I do have grievances with the current world, corrupt capitalism and so on. I am well aware that the oil and pharmaceutical lobbies fund the elections and then control policy, education and certification screwing the ordinary taxpayer all sides in the process.

BUT it is at least as progression, an indirect sodomy as opposed to the direct forms of the past. This film expects us to believe that we could in the space of a decade go back to a banana republic, concentration type camps, gross and very public abuses of human rights and all that goes with it, in established 'progressive' (if very slow to progress and still largely unfree/stratified) democratic countries such as Britain.

Even in the worst of times for 70 years, such as we've had, in relative terms even the 80's were worse than now. The worst of this has been another unnecessary costly war and high unemployment. Not pleasant, but not the disintigration of society.

The story is just way too much of a stretch. I suppose if they had even tried to somewhat plausibly address why these things could conceivably happen then maybe those questions would have left my mind and I could have gotten into the film. But I couldn't. It was far too much to let slide. So big thumbs down for me.

However, it is semi-watchable because it is fast moving with lots of good action and you do kind of want to see what will happen in the end.