Movies: Children of Men

For some reason, the minds of British fiction writers are obsessed with making the UK into a police state. Whether it's "1984," "V for Vendetta," or "Children of Men," Merry Olde England is always protrayed in these dystopian fantasies as a repressive regime. Strange that more American stuff doesn't take the same tack - guess that whole tradition of resisting authority (with the guns to back it up) makes such scenarios implausible.

Anyway, "Children of Men" is set in the near future, when some unexplained disaster has occurred - women are no longer fertile, and no human babies have been born for 18 years. The world is in shambles, and for many, all hope seems lost. The UK, seemingly the last place where law and order prevail (to a degree), struggles to stop anyone from entering the country.

To say any more would be to spoil a pretty good movie, methinks. There's some nefariously implausible circumstances here, like in all speculative fiction, as well as some one-note characters and telegraphed plot twists. But the execution of the movie (from Alfonso Cuarón, director of a lot of pretty good movies) is spot-on, and Clive Owen and Claire-Hope Ashitey do a good job here, as well. Better than quite a few movies I've seen recently.

Rating: 8/10