Set designers for a post apocalyptic movie most probably by now have a ready made template to work off:
Burnt out buildings, rusting hulks of abandoned vehicles, heavily armed troops patrolling desolate slums peopled by grimy survivors scavenging for food...you get the picture, especially if you've seen enough of these World Gone To Shit flicks (Escape From New York & LA,28 Days & Weeks Later, Death Race, 12 Monkeys etc). Within these settings, the plot of a Lone Warrior escorting a Chosen Hope of Redemption to a designated Sanctuary has been endlessly regurgitated in countless films, a few actually seeing the light of a cinema hall, the majority languishing in Direct-To-DVD dungeons.
Lifting such a setting above the generic slush pile requires writing of exceptional polish and direction from a deft hand sifting through well trod tropes to extract an additional layer of untapped originality buttressed with unexplored subtext.
Alfonso Cuaron's dark, disturbing and frankly bloody marvellous Children Of Men is what happens when a talented and gifted film maker elevates a script's dog-eared origins to fascinating highs and Matthieu Kassovitz' God Awful Babylon AD is what happens when a no talent hack (see also the equally shitty Kassovitz- helmed Gothika for further vindication on this point) torpedoes what could have been a passable Vin Diesel actioner, sinking it to the depths of unwatchability , earning Diesel his second sci-fi stinker after The Ridicules Of Chronic.
Children Of Men, based on a PD James novel, is set in 2027, in a world ravaged by infertility where not a single humn birth has been recorded for more than 18 years. London, it's totalitarian regime rounding up all immigrants for either deportation or extermination is chillingly filtered through Cuaron's unflinching lenses as Theo Faron (Clive Owen, effortlessly shedding his cool machismo from Shoot 'Em Up and Sin City) is talked by his estranged partner Julian and leader of Underground Rebel Movement The Fishes ( an effective but brief Julianne Moore) into ferrying a young girl Kee (Clare-Hop Ashitey) and her nanny Miriam (Pam Ferris) to an alleged safe haven called the Human Project.
Kee, you see, is pregnant and her child will mark the first recorded human birth in over a decade. When Theo discovers that Kee and her unborn baby will be used as pawns The Fishes' ongoing battle with the anti-immigrant Government, he, Miriam and Kee go on the run, trying to evade Government troops and Julian's coldly efficient second in command Luke (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
Like V For Vendetta, Children Of Men is uncompromisingly bleak in it's depiction of a Fascist England and it's treatment of immigrants, gritty in its lensing of detention camps and sprawling refugee slums and thrilling in it's choreography of explosive, hard-hitting violence.
Burnt out buildings, rusting hulks of abandoned vehicles, heavily armed troops patrolling desolate slums peopled by grimy survivors scavenging for food...you get the picture, especially if you've seen enough of these World Gone To Shit flicks (Escape From New York & LA,28 Days & Weeks Later, Death Race, 12 Monkeys etc). Within these settings, the plot of a Lone Warrior escorting a Chosen Hope of Redemption to a designated Sanctuary has been endlessly regurgitated in countless films, a few actually seeing the light of a cinema hall, the majority languishing in Direct-To-DVD dungeons.
Lifting such a setting above the generic slush pile requires writing of exceptional polish and direction from a deft hand sifting through well trod tropes to extract an additional layer of untapped originality buttressed with unexplored subtext.
Alfonso Cuaron's dark, disturbing and frankly bloody marvellous Children Of Men is what happens when a talented and gifted film maker elevates a script's dog-eared origins to fascinating highs and Matthieu Kassovitz' God Awful Babylon AD is what happens when a no talent hack (see also the equally shitty Kassovitz- helmed Gothika for further vindication on this point) torpedoes what could have been a passable Vin Diesel actioner, sinking it to the depths of unwatchability , earning Diesel his second sci-fi stinker after The Ridicules Of Chronic.
Children Of Men, based on a PD James novel, is set in 2027, in a world ravaged by infertility where not a single humn birth has been recorded for more than 18 years. London, it's totalitarian regime rounding up all immigrants for either deportation or extermination is chillingly filtered through Cuaron's unflinching lenses as Theo Faron (Clive Owen, effortlessly shedding his cool machismo from Shoot 'Em Up and Sin City) is talked by his estranged partner Julian and leader of Underground Rebel Movement The Fishes ( an effective but brief Julianne Moore) into ferrying a young girl Kee (Clare-Hop Ashitey) and her nanny Miriam (Pam Ferris) to an alleged safe haven called the Human Project.
Kee, you see, is pregnant and her child will mark the first recorded human birth in over a decade. When Theo discovers that Kee and her unborn baby will be used as pawns The Fishes' ongoing battle with the anti-immigrant Government, he, Miriam and Kee go on the run, trying to evade Government troops and Julian's coldly efficient second in command Luke (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
Like V For Vendetta, Children Of Men is uncompromisingly bleak in it's depiction of a Fascist England and it's treatment of immigrants, gritty in its lensing of detention camps and sprawling refugee slums and thrilling in it's choreography of explosive, hard-hitting violence.
Special mention: A wonderful Michael Caine as aging ex-hippie Jasper.
An absolute must watch.
Babylon AD takes a near identical premise to Children Of Men, in this case brawny, gravel-voiced mercenary Toorop (Vin Diesel) is hired to transport child prodigy Aurora and her carer Rebecca (Michelle Yeoh) from their icy convent retreat on the Russian steppes to the United States where great things apparently await her. No such luck for the viewer as Kassovitz sets out to systematically botch the telling of this tale and fuck up it's meagre action scenes with jerkily filmed and badly edited shots. Apparently 2 versions of this movie were released, a 90 minute cut for the Stats and a 101 minute cut for Europe, both versions apparently trimmed from a 160 minute Director's Cut that if there is a God, should make more sense than this mess.
Hint: When a director publicly flogs his own work just before its release, that's a helpful clue to give it a skip.
Vin, please Get Fast. Get Furious. Soon!
An absolute must watch.
Babylon AD takes a near identical premise to Children Of Men, in this case brawny, gravel-voiced mercenary Toorop (Vin Diesel) is hired to transport child prodigy Aurora and her carer Rebecca (Michelle Yeoh) from their icy convent retreat on the Russian steppes to the United States where great things apparently await her. No such luck for the viewer as Kassovitz sets out to systematically botch the telling of this tale and fuck up it's meagre action scenes with jerkily filmed and badly edited shots. Apparently 2 versions of this movie were released, a 90 minute cut for the Stats and a 101 minute cut for Europe, both versions apparently trimmed from a 160 minute Director's Cut that if there is a God, should make more sense than this mess.
Hint: When a director publicly flogs his own work just before its release, that's a helpful clue to give it a skip.
Vin, please Get Fast. Get Furious. Soon!
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