Fans of end-of-times movies (of which I am a big one), great news – this is the best one yet.
Alfonso Cuarón’s (Y tu mamá también, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) latest movie starts off with a nifty premise. It’s the near future. Women are infertile. There are no more children, and no prospects for procreation. The youngest people on the planet are 18. Schools lay fallow in disrepair. Nations are collapsing. Britain operates as a police state, and has closed its borders to all immigrants – only British citizens are allowed to live there. Illegals are rounded up and sent who-knows-where; they are badly treated. Radicals violently protest this injustice, and terrorism is a daily fact of life. You risk your life simply getting a cup of coffee. The end is nigh, the end is nigh!
Against this backdrop, we get both a superb action plot and a high-impact human drama, that rarest of motion pictures that operates on two levels at the same time. I shall reveal no more and leave the pleasures of the intricate story to the viewer. It’s expertly directed by Cuarón, who also co-wrote a brilliant screenplay. The genius of the movie is in the pacing – it starts out fairly sedate with an interesting examination of the world as it exists at that time, and gradually ratchets up the tension until by the end we can hardly stand it any more. The characters are deep and memorable, the dialogue is rich and natural, and the machinations of the plot are unpredictable and pack a great payoff. The acting (Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine among many others) is nothing short of immersive. Our “hero” is no Superman, and he spends most of the movie just doing the best he can, which makes him very appealing. Filmed with a verite style, the effects are utterly seamless. They’re so well integrated you can’t even tell what’s an effect and what’s not. This is no Hollywood picture; there is no melodrama and the camera doesn’t flinch from anything, nor does the script ever resort to cliche or convention. In fact, quite early on, it clearly signals that anything goes. The cinematography is top-notch, easily the best I’ve ever seen in this genre. The soundtrack is suitably downbeat and never gets in the way.
Like I said, best “world apocolypse” movie yet. Better than “28 Days Later”, better than “Dawn of the Dead”, way better than “Night of the Comet”. The whole production is triple-A, and a major artistic achievement for Cuarón and his crew. 4 stars out of 4.
I saw this as well and felt that it was pretty good. It kind of had some corny “Jesus Christ” moments that reminded me of the whole Matrix thing. Puh-lease…the virgin/christ child thing is just getting overdone in movies and TV shows.
Independence Day started off stark as well, but turned dissapointing when the seriousness wore off with Will Smith trying to fit in comedy. This movie at least doesn’t follow that main stream movie crap. And it does keep you interested till the very end.
I still rate Terminator 3 as my best “end of times” movie ever. What better way to end a movie then with nuclear destruction? It also had a reluctant “christ child” element, but Linda Hammil was no virgin.
Hey Kirk! Now, I kind of liked how they handled the whole “Christ child” thing by poking fun at the convention – remember when she tells him she’s a virgin, and then moments later reveals she’s kidding? Good stuff.
ID4 is hopelessly campy (and the special effects don’t stand up well today). I have not yet watched T3 all the way through, just bits and pieces here and there. Thanks for telling me the ending!
No, seriously, I’ll have to get around to watching it sometime soon. I just love the whole apocalyptic theme.
My problem with Chidren of Men is that it never really goes anywhere beyond the initial premise.
Bring the mother and child to the boat. See the stark set pieces set up by the film crew. Endure a double cross by a group with really poorly fleshed out motivations. End.
As I said when we discussed this earlier…very well crafted, but the script needed a helluva lot of work.
I won’t disagree too strongly, and maybe I should have knocked off half a star for it. If there is a weakness to this movie, it’s the script. At a slim 90 minutes, they certainly could have afforded to flesh things out a bit more. That said, what the filmmakers did with the script at hand was masterful (I’m thinking especially of the cinematography here), which I suppose would be the “very well crafted” part you refer to.
Yeah. I mean visually you can definitely buy into the world. They “take you there”.
There’s just not enough about the human project. Not enough about the other group vying for the child. It’s a chase scene with an interlude with the hardest working actor in show business (Michael Caine.) If I’m grading on a 5 point scale, I go 3 1/2.