Children of Men

here's the reviews (Guernica is the Picasso Painting), plz do not reproduce due to copyright violations, etc:

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CHILDREN OF MEN
2006
USA / UK Co-production
Directed by: Alfonso Cuaron
Starring: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Claire-Hope Ashitey, Michael Caine,
Chiwetel Ejiofor

Probably the most interesting (and depressing) premise of the New Year
comes in this out-of-left-field high-budget British / American debut (for
non-kiddy movies anyway) for much-hyped Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron
(“Y Tu Mama Tambien”[2001], “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”
[2004]). It comes as no surprise that the film is well-acted and
stylishly filmed in a flamboyant hyper-realistic manner, but much like
earlier British surprise hit “28 Days Later… (2002)”, it suffers from plot
holes and an overall lack of originality.

>From “Sin City” (2005) to “Derailed” (2004), it seems like Clive Owen is
in every movie I bring a date to. You just can’t get away from this guy,
but he definitely is a rising star. He’s always the same sort
sharp-looking, likeable guy who radiates an almost Nicholas Cage type of
cynicism. However, he has no trouble falling back into his original
British accent absent in his last few films. Here he’s a bored office
worker who lives in a dystopian future (2029) in which the world has
degenerated into societal chaos and, for some unknown reason, women are no
longer fertile. I guess the loss of stock in V-Chips, prophylactics, and
Teletubbies set off some sort of economic crash, yet Britain advertises
that it “soldiers on” in the face of such calamity. Hence, immigrants
from all over the world flock to its borders only to be hunted down and
“deported” by government hit squads. This breeds some sort of vaguely
Islamic terrorist uprising that plants numerous bombs in public places
throughout the country. Its leader (Julianne Moore – believe it or not)
then somehow recruits Owen to escort the last surviving fertile woman
(Claire-Hope Ashitey) to a fabled group called “The Human Project”. Of
course, with fertile women and children being such an unheard of
commodity, Owen and his group are hit with immediate perils and
doublecrosses along their journey to a destination that may or may not
exist.

While the film goes for documentary realism through several impressively
complicated and lengthy single-shot sequences (complete with mostly
seemless special effects), it ultimately suffers from a number of holes in
the plot. For instance, the bad guys often lament not being able to shoot
at Owen and company in fear of hitting the fertile girl, but no one thinks
to just shoot out the tires on his car while he’s driving away? Even with
the fate of the world at stake, Owen ignores his father (Michael Caine)’s
advice and forgoes a head start with the girl to stop and watch the
ensuing terrorists interrogate his father. Also, twenty years passing by
with no children would still not be too long for most people to remember
what a pregnant woman would look or act like! It also leaves a number of
interesting questions raised by its premise unaddressed - like what
happened to cloning or artificial insemination? While it begins
promisingly enough, the film swiftly degenerates into a giant
cat-and-mouse chase with no focus on the overall problem of the end of
human life, instead just following the protagonists around as they dodge
bullets.

This whole premise was actually handled with much more energy and fun in
the 80’s B-movie “2019 – After the Fall of New York” (1983) which also had
a hero saving a fertile woman in a bleak future (after a nuclear holocaust
in that movie) but had cyborgs, spaceships, mutants, car crashes, and
actually had an original musical score (well sort-of… more on that later).
The difference is that “2019” takes place 10 years earlier than this
movie, has no major stars, and has no major pretensions about what it is.
“Children of Men”, on the other hand, uses a bludgeon to hammer its murky
political ideals into the heads of the audience, with some imagery eerily
akin to the Abu Ghraib debacle in a over-securitized system right out of a
George Orwell novel or a scene from Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” (1985). With
a subject like this, the sky is the limit, so it’s disappointing to see
the movie aim so high, yet shoot so low. Anyone who has played the game
“Half Life 2” in the last couple years will also be feeling a strong sense
of deja vu.

That said, Children of Men does feel much fresher than most of the cream
of Hollywood’s crop in recent years, in that at least it’s not a sequel or
a remake. Much like “28 Days Later…”, enjoyment of this film is entirely
dependent on the viewer’s acquaintance with the movies from which it
“borrows” its material.

2 Squares out of 4. – Flawed yet commendable E for Effort


2019 – AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK
(AKA 2019 – DOPO LA CADUTA DI NEW YORK)
1983
Italy / France Co-production
Directed by: Sergio Martino (as “Martin Dolman”)
Starring: Michael Sopkiw, Valentine Monnier, Anna Kanakis, Luigi
Montefiore (“as George Eastman”), Romano Puppo, Edmund Purdom

Italy (and to a lesser extend Spain) has always been the country to take
whatever movie genre is popular at the time, and then flood the market
with similar films made on a drastically reduced budget. Remember all the
sword and sandal movies that came out of Italy after “Hercules” (1959),
and then again in the early 80’s after “Conan the Barbarian” (1982)?
Everything successful from 1960 to 1990, from “The Exorcist” (1973) to
“Quest for Fire” (1981) earned itself an Italian imitation like “Beyond
the Door” (1974) or “Ironmaster” (1982). The worldwide hit Australian
movie “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior” (1982) was no exception and gave rise
to the Italian post-apocalyptic genre, of which this is probably the
finest example.

Borrowing more in terms of plot from “Escape from New York” and the same
Guido and Maurizio De Angelis musical score used in caveman sci-fi movie
“Yor: The Hunter from the Future” (1982), “After the Fall of New York”
follows a hero “Parsifal” (Michael Sopkiw) as he attempts to escape New
York City with the last fertile woman left in a world devastated by a
recent nuclear holocaust. Along the way, Parsifal is aided by a beautiful
though sterile woman Giara (Valentine Monnier), an android (Romano Puppo),
a cyborg, a dwarf, and a group of circus freaks led by master
blade-thrower “Big Ape” (Luigi Montefiore from “King David” [1985] and
“Call of the Wild” [1972]) while he battles the evil Euracs who have taken
over America. Okay, so this is definitely a lot better than it sounds.

This high-concept film may have its base on a depressing central theme,
but arguably has some of the most exhilarating and quickly-cut action
scenes in B-movie history. With colorful costumes, make-up, AND set
design (reminding me of the “Star Trek” episode “Miri”[1966]), “2019 -
After the Fall of New York” has more fight scenes and silly dialog crammed
into its trim 91-minute running time than most Hollywood movies can even
dream of. My favorite line has to be either “hey, it’s not his fault he
isn’t a child!” (in regards to a dwarf) or when the lovely Anna Kanakis
(Miss Italy 1979) as an evil Eurac commander lets captive Sopkiw know she
could be his “petition for mercy” he responds by making out with her and
muttering “I think I’ll sign it”.

Being an Italian action movie from the 80’s, “2019” has a number of
ridiculous sound effects (are those supposed to be laser guns?), laughable
sub-Godzilla movie miniature special effects, and often sloppily dubbed
audio (even for the English actors) by Peter “Speed Racer” Fernandez and
the same group that did English dubbing on a number of Japanese Anime
cartoons. This film also has a number of welcome cameos by the likes of
Al Yamanouchi (the lead pirate in “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”
[2004]), former British leading man Edmund Purdom as the President of
what’s left of the USA, and even Angelo Ragusa (Jesus’s stunt double in
“Passion of the Christ” [2004]) as a random thug! On top of all that,
lets not forget lots and lots of gratuitous blood and gore, yet this movie
curiously lacks bad language or nudity (especially considering the subject
matter).

Those of you who got a big kick out of “Children of Men” (2006) need to
check this out to see all the similarities and differences and how far
movies have come (or fallen) in the last quarter-century. Both movies
contain Picasso’s “Guernica” painting, several instances where a car door
is used as a weapon, and both are international co-productions dealing
with infertility in a miserable future. The difference is while
“Children” may go for hyper-realism, “2019” goes for hyper-unrealism,
which makes it a less serious, but a lot more fun.

3 out of 4 – “Hard to say no to a movie with armored station wagons
smashing through brick walls in slow motion”

Thanks for pointing out that titbit of info...you know it all prick.