Children of Men
polycounter lvl 18
Absolutely bloody fantastic movie. Probably the best movie I have seen this whole year. It really makes you think.
Loved the fighting scenes in the movie, and the whole cinematography in general. Clive put in another great performance as well. The only thing I didn't really like was the ending, it left a little to be desired.
Anyone else seen it?
Loved the fighting scenes in the movie, and the whole cinematography in general. Clive put in another great performance as well. The only thing I didn't really like was the ending, it left a little to be desired.
Anyone else seen it?
Replies
This may sound really nerdy, but it's like the filmic version of HL2. They don't give you much up front about how exactly the world's been going to shit, but there is tons and tons of clues and interesting info from the environment, news clippings, etc.
While the performances are for the most part very low-key, they're appropriate to what the movie is about and consistent with its overall tone. It makes my best of the year list, easy.
But maybe I will go to one of these 11pm weekday shows
gauss nailed it, it's grim but realistic, and awesomely filmed.
the effects were some of the most believable i've seen in a while - not over-the-top explosions, just awesomely powerful sounds and believable visuals. top stuff!
Spoliers: i was simply moved by that scene when the battle in the building was ground to a halt,the bullets stopped and peoples reaction all around,it was like a small breath of hope in an otherwise hopeless story.
and the baby scene, nuts! i didnt believe that was 3d
This may sound really nerdy, but it's like the filmic version of HL2.
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I keep hearing this from different people and it really makes me wanting to see the movie. But it only lasted a couple of weeks here and I missed it unfortunately.
Either that or get the DVD when it comes out and watch it at someone's house who has a huge screen and awesome surround sound.
PedramK, I didn't believe it was 3D either, funny thing was my girlfriend called it being CG, and I didn't believe her until we got home and checked
it's great! quite a funny movie in parts too, especially when Peter mullan's fascist cop starts speaking in third person.
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"now show us your fugee face!"
unexpected bit of hilarity, that.
i'm guessing everyone caught the very specific nod to the Abu Ghraib torture scandal? they definitely made sure it was on screen long enough, but man, that was haunting.
As mentioned earlier, it felt much like the film version of HL2. You're thrust into the story with no explanation as to why the world is in this situation, and often left fill in the gaps from all of the information seen in the heavily detailed world.
Absolutely cannot wait to see this again.
awesome movie awesome ending !!!
Marcus Dublin
Artist - Kaos Studios
PS: Mexican Directors are on a role, one of these guys had better take home an Oscar this Year!
[spoilers]
I have two gripes, though, both occuring around the scene where the soldiers see the baby and stop fighting. First is the girl's acting right before it. I mean, she's just been kidnapped, everyone around her is dying, and the building is being blow up yet she acts perfectly calm and even throws in a wise-crack. She should be hysterical at this point. The same problem occurs at the ending.
Secondly, after the soldiers let them pass and start shooting at the building again, not a single soldier follows them away. That's ridiculous. Here they are practically on the ground praying, yet out of this entire group of people not one thought that it would be a good idea to try and follow the baby. Yeah, just let the random guy slowly walk away with it in the middle of a battleground, great idea.
[/spoilers]
But a great movie nonetheless.
**SPOILER**
Come on, BRITAIN survives? pffft!
**spoiler**
I was actually stunned by how she was shot, and how soon, and how real, and the setup. After that, you really couldn't guess what would happen next. Very suspenseful. Like when Wash was impaled in Serenity, but for the whole film.
SPOILERS AHEAD:
Although, now I was paying more attention to the extended takes, the one in the streets with the gunfights near the end, I think it was more than one take, cleverly pieced together - the blood splatter changes on the lens after the camera moves past a dark area, and then the blood splatter disappears completely just before Theo goes up the stairs, so... either the blood was postprocessed on, or they used opportune moments to combine different shots to appear seamless. Still beautifully done though.
And now the HL2 comparison has been made, I did notice that a lot too, especially the "first-person" kinda stuff when they were in the car and Julian gets shot, and the street battle scenes.
I still think this really has to be seen at the cinema (or if someone has an awwwwwweeesoome home theatre setup with very big screen and lovely surround sound, that works too), to be fully appreciated. The sound work alone is beautiful.
So yeah, I think this was probably my favourite movie of 2006. Pan's Labyrinth comes pretty close though.
FUCK YEAH.
I was surprised to see Philip K. Dick or Orson Welles didn't have writing credits for this, haha.
edit: actually i meant George Orwell. Fuck these sci-fi guys and their similar names. Orwell, Wells, Welles?
pffsh.
saw it last nite,, great movie,, i'll know in a week or so if it makes my favorite list, sometimes i have to wait till the first impresions wear off before i know if i really liked the movie, or just liked the movie experience.. if that makes any sense
i liked they had the bad guy from serenity in this, i liked his acting, and want to see him in more stuff.
really my only complaint about the movie was the over use of songs in the soundtrack, i don't realy like "songs" in movies
still haven't seen it yet, i don't see how it could be better than pan's labyrinth, but i will mos def check this junk out.
anyone else laugh out loud when Eureka started beating the shit out of that dude who was gonna sell them out?
I should probably see it again, because i don't really remember much of anything of the music in there. Unless you mean when it was actually played on a stereo, like in the old mans house?
This movie definitely was awesome, enjoyed it the whole way through, excellently done.
SPOILERS
What I didn't get was, towards the end, when everybody stops shooting to let them through with the baby, why didn't the army soldiers capture them and take them in? I'd imagine they would bring them to their leaders or something...
The ending was good, but I wish we could have seen where the boat took the mother and baby, project human, maybe like an all white facility like the clone lab in Star Wars 2.
The action sequence was awesome, made me feel like I was watching Saving Private Ryan. I really felt bad for his feet though, that shit must have hurt bad!
overall i would say it was pretty depressing, but a great movie though
steady, that scene was a bit romanticized to show the baby bringing everyone together in a brief momment of hope, then its all forgotten. they were to struck dumb,
The baby scene made sense to me - they all saw a new born baby and called for a cease-fire as to not hurt it. Once the baby made it through the fight started again. And some soldiers were noticably effected by it (praying, etc.)
My favourite scene was the long take near the end. It was so fun and easy to watch, I wish it had gone on for a longer time. Right after that, when Theo is talking to the black guy perched against the wall, I liked watching as the bullets barely missed his head and were hitting the wall behind him.
Anyone else notice the vag shot when the baby was born? I was really surprised that they showed that.
The way Sid died was really out of the blue to me, and I liked that a lot. Everything about the action in this movie seemed really well paced and really believable.
2 small things that stuck out, and were the only sore spots for me. The part where they were blowing the white ball from each others mouth - the ball was noticeably CG, especially the last frame of it before Moore was killed.
CG babies for the win! (Thanks Daz, d'oh!)
Anyway, great movie. I want to watch it again and I agree with MoP 100% that this movie needs to be watched in the cinema.
Haha someones pulling your leg Adam, I'm pretty certain Clive Owen didn't train to be a midwife and deliver an actual baby on set.
It was originally an animatronic baby, that apparently wasn't convincing enough, so subsequently was replaced by a cg baby. It certainly wasn't a 'real birth scene'.
http://www.fxguide.com/article390.html
Great movie. I agree with Adam, the whole thing felt very real and believable. They introduced an absolutely tremendous amount of backstory for such a short film, but did so through imagery rather than dialogue. Little touches like the old newspaper clippings and political cartoons added much to the story's plausibility. It seems a world not far removed from our own. Acting was solid as well.
It was a real childbirth?!
EDIT - Thanks Daz
Also, the use of animals was awesome. Apparently the director uses them often to show humanity in man, but it helped show that Theo is a kind trusting person IMO. Almost all of the shots with him had an animal in it (Caines house, the Fishes house, the forest, the hide out with the Gypsy). As well - theres an over use of animals, IMO, because theres no more children anymore so more people look to pets for that type of companionship.
And my fuck did that school scene scare me. It wasn't until I was reading the SA boards did it get pointed out to me - there wasn't anything bad that had happened to that school in particular, they just don't need schools anymore so its been abandoned for some time. I had thought that area was hit with war or something. Jesus what a revelation.
There were a lot of a little enjoyable details that just made it seem more futuristic, but without it being really super sci-fi futuristic.
To me this movie really shines because of how spot on it is to how humanity would react to something like that. The baby scene where all the troops stopped almost killed the movie for me. It almost broke the believability of the world, i couldn't see anyway out of it, i figured that they were fucked because the troops would take them in. Then the tank gets hit and everyone pops back into fighting mode and forgets about the baby. That was the most naturally human thing to do to return to fighting even after seeing something like that.
Also i loved the use of dogs in the movie as well. They worked very well to unify the film.