comment #1

le corbeau says ...

Interesting to compare, then, with not-entirely-dissimilar Idiocracy, which seems to be half exposition in the final studio cut, lest there be a single retarded drunk in the audience who fails to understand every last piece of the setup and each plot turn as it happens.

comment #2

Teh Awesome says ...

Good point, MgMax. I hope the quality movie buried in "Idiocracy" gets to be seen as it should one day.

comment #3

LYTrules says ...

The best example to me of excessive narration and explanation ruining a great sci-fi story is Dark City. I can't bear Kiefer Sutherland's performance and narration; it's the only off-note about the whole thing, but enough of one that I can't get past it.

Less of a problem for me in Idiocracy, though I agree the narration was unnecessary.

comment #4

PaulKolas says ...

Christening the first day of the New Year with a gloriously presented "Children of Men" at the AMC Lowes Boston Common 19, I can't help but think that after the dust settles on more conventional fare like "Dreamgirls", "The Queen", "Babel", and "The Departed", this will be the 2006 film that matters in the years to come. Curaon has restored my faith in the possibilities of filmmaking.

comment #5

shtfilter says ...

It is Del Toro that should restore your faith in filmmaking. Children of Men is good (not great). To me it wasn't a satisfying moviegoing experience. I wanted way more than was given and if you've seen the trailer more than 3 times then you have seen the movie.

comment #6

Josh Massey says ...

Funny "A.I." should be mentioned. Kingsley never popped out at me; the truly awful "exposition" performance in that film was William Hurt's.

comment #7

Undercover Brother says ...

Before you pat Cauron on the back for dodging excessive explanation for the mass infertility, you should known the P.D. James book on which the film is based uses the same style of plotting. I'm not sure how Cauron's film plays out, but in James' book, all men have become sterile overnight. No one knows why. That's it.

comment #8

Undercover Brother says ...

Sorry, that's Cuaron. My bad.

comment #9

jeffto says ...

In fact, I think PD James wrote one of the best first sentences ever: "Early this morning, 1 January 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last human being to be born on earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of Buenos Aires, aged 25 years, two months and twelve days".

comment #10

Undercover Brother says ...

I think Cuaron uses a variation on that line as it's in the preview to the film, but I can already tell that he's used little else from James' book. I'm not bemoaning that fact, just observing. I liked the James novel, but it felt a little undersized for the big screen. A big concept that's kept intentionally low key. Cuaron seems to have liked the concept and used it as a launching point for his own movie. Hopefully it will open here this weekend.

comment #11

RoyBatty says ...

SPOILER - YOU'VE BEEN WARNED
(as in end-of-the-movie type)

Reading over the praising of the film comments, most of which I agree with, I was finally able to put my finger on why as much as I like the film I can't jump on the "Best film of the year/decade" bandwagon: it betrays itself in the last 5 mins.

Having read over a nice synopsis on wikipedia for the novel, I really appreciated most of the changes that were made to the basic plot.
Getting away from the upper-echelon power struggles of the book and keeping the film grounded to the masses was a smart move.

Yet at the very end, they come apart. It felt entirely too familiar to have Theo die stoically just before the very unsubtly named "Tomorrow" arrived. Truly, it almost rivals the rat-on-a-railing in THE DEPARTED as the year's worst, ham-fisted visual metaphore. I had been able to get past the rather implausible turn of everyone simply letting them walk away so they could resume fighting hoping the climax would make up for it. It doesn't.

The whole thing felt too pat and pedestrian, like decent TV. It did not feel like the ending to a great film. Most of all, it seemed to be a "placeholder" ending: something the filmmakers put in the script waiting for inspiration to give them something much better. But they got sidetracked trying to be clever with long, "look at what I can do!" stunt takes and forgot to put that kind of ingenuity into wrapping up their film.

Put another way - the comparisons to BLADE RUNNER are very apt when considering both films are more celebrated for their visual techniques than their stories.

comment #12

LYTrules says ...

That partially depends, Roy, on whether you believe the Tomorrow is in fact going to save the day. My reading was that such a thing was in no way certain, just a vague hope that may or may not play out. But having hope was always the point; not necessarily whether or not it would get you anywhere.

comment #13

Eric says ...

It think it was pretty clear that the Tomorrow was going to save the day.

comment #14

Devin Faraci says ...

The film is all about hope, so of course the day is saved. The basic concept is that there is also some hope, no matter how bad things get.

And finding the scene where everyone stops fighting implausible... I am actually sorry for you. It's one of the most moving moments in film this year for me.

comment #15

RoyBatty says ...

Try feeling less sorry and reading more carefully, Devin.

My problem was not that they stopped, it was that after witnessing the first child born in 20 something years they basically went "Ah, right then, lets get back to this here pointless exchange of gunfire."

All those soldiers and every single one of them decided "Let's not tell our superiors about this"??? Or the fact there would be officers on ground there who would have realized they needed to do something.

Yes, it was moving and perhaps the film should have ended with that scene. Left it up to the viewers to decide what happened next.

comment #16

NYCBusybody says ...

All the good stuff in Children of Men was taken DIRECTLY from P.D. James, and he also ruined the wonderfully thoughtful book by adding vaguely hippie-ish, politically correct, play to the socialist blue-state masses tripe.