Children of Men

jim pinto · Jan 3, 2007

i went to a select theatre last night and started off 2007 being captivated by a film i'm sure i'll see two or three more times.

and wow.

i know this isn't the typical venue for movie reviews, but i think children of men has a lot of gaming potential for story and setting to inspire DMs and players, alike.

it is not your typical "serenity"-style gamer film, but it is masterfully filmed and produced.

i won't spoil the film in any manner. rather, i will say it's excellent. it should surprise you. and it's not for people who like jessica alba/simpson movies.

Mark CMG · Jan 3, 2007

jim pinto said:
i know this isn't the typical venue for movie reviews, but (. . .)

. . . the Media Lounge is.

el-remmen · Jan 3, 2007

Mark CMG said:
. . . the Media Lounge is.

Yes, it is.

Simplicity · Jan 3, 2007

Honestly, I thought this movie was not all that. It did have a couple of good scenes, but ... eh. Mankind is barren, and mankind is cruel. Okay I get it. So what?

Spoilers:

So they get the woman and baby to "The Human Project". So what? Is that going to change anything? What if the problem isn't with women, but with men? So there's now a single young human being. So what? Is there any guarantee that she's fertile? No. The problem was never found, and certainly never solved. The bad guys are incredibly stupid. Hey, I've got a plan... Lets get the world's only fertile woman in a car and start shooting at that car. Great plan.

The real problem is that the movie had no gotcha moment (which all good sci-fi movies really need). Soylent green isn't people. Everybody knows we blew it up, damn us all to hell.

Not to mention that the movie's ending should have been 2 minutes shorter.

Mark CMG · Jan 3, 2007

Simplicity said:
The real problem is that the movie had no gotcha moment (which all good sci-fi movies really need). Soylent green isn't people. Everybody knows we blew it up, damn us all to hell.

You should really put that in your sig.

jim pinto · Jan 3, 2007

Simplicity said:
The real problem is that the movie had no gotcha moment (which all good sci-fi movies really need). Soylent green isn't people. Everybody knows we blew it up, damn us all to hell.

Not to mention that the movie's ending should have been 2 minutes shorter.

since you are judging it as a sci-fi movie, i think you've missed the point altogether

there is a difference between sci-fi (lucas, spielberg) and fiction with science in it...

children of men is closer to stories like "the plague" and "germinal" for social relevance and awareness

the movie had several cuts that were 5+ minutes long... it wasn't designed to "get you"

for that matter, gattaca probably wasn't to your liking, either

but... if you don't like it... you don't like it... that's fine. i'm not going to try and convince you.... i think the system you are using to judge its merits seems flawed... or at least the equivalent of using a sledgehammer to repair a washing machine

and people should be aware that the movie isn't for anyone that wants to see explosions and laser guns. it's an end of the world movie, with a potent story and a care and consideration that few movies in this genre posses

trancejeremy · Jan 3, 2007

So it's all preachiness then? No gotcha? Bleah

Simplicity · Jan 3, 2007

jim pinto said:
since you are judging it as a sci-fi movie, i think you've missed the point altogether

there is a difference between sci-fi (lucas, spielberg) and fiction with science in it...

children of men is closer to stories like "the plague" and "germinal" for social relevance and awareness

the movie had several cuts that were 5+ minutes long... it wasn't designed to "get you"

for that matter, gattaca probably wasn't to your liking, either

but... if you don't like it... you don't like it... that's fine. i'm not going to try and convince you.... i think the system you are using to judge its merits seems flawed... or at least the equivalent of using a sledgehammer to repair a washing machine

and people should be aware that the movie isn't for anyone that wants to see explosions and laser guns. it's an end of the world movie, with a potent story and a care and consideration that few movies in this genre posses

I've watched and liked more sci-fi than any human being has a right to.

Actually, I really liked Gattaca. The effects were much more professional, and the story was much deeper, and explored various aspects of the new society. One gotcha: how he beat his genetic superior at swimming. But then again, the movie actually went somewhere. Children of Men did not. Unless you think the "escape" scene counts. Personally, I thought it was pretty lame.

More spoilers:

Who cares if the British government credits refugees or not? Oh I know instead of going public, let's send a baby into a CONCENTRATION CAMP. So that we could maybe find a boat. To maybe find an organization which no one we know has talked to. I just wanted to stand up and say: Screw all you idiots. GO PUBLIC. No, they can't because there's no such thing as an Internet in the future.

Yes, yes... that ringing sound is the ear cells dying. Soon, you will no longer hear the frequency of overly pretentious sci-fi.

Simplicity · Jan 3, 2007

Re-reading my last post... I'm being overly harsh. The movie isn't terrible. It's just... not that good in my view.

I don't like it for the same reason I didn't like Saving Private Ryan. You don't have to make a movie to point out that people are inhumane to each other. There's nothing novel or even remotely interesting in that statement to me. Watching this sci-fi movie feels like watching a war movie that is tipping its hat at Soylent Green.

Here's how I would have done it:
Society no longer has children... And so everybody parties all the time.
And no one saves money for the future or bothers to work all that hard.
And the economies of the world collapse. But someone figures out the cure.
But while escaping the authorities, he is ruthelessly crushed on the dancefloor.
The end. Oh, the humanity.

Gunslinger · Jan 5, 2007

I saw it during the limited release, and I liked it. Good acting, good character development, interesting story (I liked that they didn't try and make up dumb explanations for everything, because if you were really in that situation the answers wouldn't matter. It's reality, you might as well accept it rather than question everything so you can find the one magical flaw that will let you improbably solve everything at once.) I don't really even understand the term "gotcha moment", so I wasn't disappointed because I don't think I was going in to the movie expecting there to be one.