Children of Men (2006)

  After seeing, and enjoying, Gravity this year, I was looking forward to watching Children of Men when it came up on the shelf.  I thought that maybe I could see some of Alfonso Cuaron's signatures, start to get a feel for him as a director, if I watched this earlier work.

I did not get that sense.  In fact, I would be hard pressed to tell you anything I learned from this movie.  I was trying to focus on the camera work but kept getting distracted by the plot.

In a dystopian near future, there are no children.  Put down the confetti, that's actually bad news.  Theo (Clive Owen) decides to help his former girlfriend (Julianne Moore) by getting her a couple of exit visas.  He soon learns that she is protecting the first pregnant woman in eighteen years, a refugee named Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey).  They believe they can get to a sanctuary run by "The Human Project," a scientific group studying the infertility epidemic, if they can get off England.  However, there are different factions that want to use Kee and her baby as a spark to light an entire revolution.

I honestly don't know why this got critical acclaim (93% on Rotten Tomatoes) and Babylon A.D. (6%) didn't.  They're really similar, plot-wise.  Maybe because Children of Men avoids the whole supernatural angle, or because it came out first, I don't know.  Frankly, I enjoyed Babylon A.D. more.