"They make us feel the weight their carrying without grinding us down." Word of advice for you writers out there: Don't piss us off with too much detail or grind us down your with your inhuman characters. Better if we could almost see and almost touch and nearly feel the harrowing yet understated pathos of our dystopic stereotype, all would be pleasant for an hour or two. After the movie and dinner and all is practically fogot, we might feel better and buy our dog an extra treat or even one of those heartwarming stair masters for dogs if they were getting too fat. They could climb the stairs without enduring the pain of too much wind or cold or those nasty, futuristic epithets of the neighbors like Homeland Security or Office of Special Plans.

For once, the Times seems to have seen the same move as Stephanie.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/movies/25chil.html

Of course, when did Clive Owen not act in a good one?

I can't let go of the thought that a story that apparently assumes that animal cloning will not have been invented by 2027 is a little anachronistic. If only the movie had been made, say, forty years ago.

Seriously.

When was Clive Owen in a bad film??

Two words for you:

King Arthur

Oh Five more words for you:

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

But, in all honesty, I love the guy. I saw the formentioned films precisely because he was in them.

This looks great.

Normally, I appreciate Stephanie Zacharek's reviews a great deal. I recognize the difficulty of the critic who has to talk about a movie, suggest whether it's worth seeing or not, and then support that recommedation with information about the movie that doesn't reveal too much.

That said, I found this review had too much detail about the movie. There seemed to be many things, if not major plot points, that I would have preferred to discover on my own. I hope when I see Children of Men myself there are more of these that the reviewer did not write about.

I liked this review. You didn't tell us why they can't have babies or why the world is such a mess. I'm dying to know! This is a must see movie for me now. Excellent review!

I am a high school history teacher. At the end of the 2nd semester I like to show "Soylent Green.". I wonder if this movie is any better. I'll have to go and see "Children of Men" to see if it has a similar message. ----Cynthia Welsh

Looking forward to seeing this film. Too bad it takes infertility to the extreme, apparently leading to probable extinction. With our current overpopulation problems a smack of infertility could be a solution. What if women could only manage one or two live births in a lifetime?

I saw the film in Paris and we must have watched two different films. This film is in every way a grade B movie, predictable plot, flat characters, politically correct in the way that makes your eyes roll and I kept looking at my watch to see when it will be over. The art direction and the photography were mediocre and at times cartoonish and not very convincing. A comic book film in every way. We are in a very sad state when critics find material like this interesting and write about it as if they saw some sort of revelation. Critics are old school anyway and if anyone really finds this film engaging in any way I do not at all understand why. The dialog was television level as were the characters and the acting was almost non existent. You could watch the actors strain to get something out of the words they were meant to spout. I am truly amazed by the good review and wonder if there is something that we should know behind the praise. Reading the words again I detect that the reviewer is not as convinced as she tries to be. I rarely go to movies and this one is another reason why.

I'm a comic book geek, so when I first heard about this movie, the first thing that came to mind was the comic "Y, the last man." a comic about...well...the last man on earth after he accidently kills the others with a magic item. But the more I learn about this movie, from the terrorist bombings, to the modern democrocies torturing desenters and rounding up the "outsiders", it's beginning to sound closer to the original "V for Vendetta" graphic novel then that movie was.

I think that if humans really did lose the ability to reproduce, the AIDS crisis in the west would start to reach the same levels as Africa. Without pregnency as an obstacle to recreational sex, particularly random sex with strangers, people would be having a lot more of it without regard to protection. Of course, it's also possible with no future to look forward to, civilization would collapse into something resembling Iraq at the moment.

This story probably would have been better as an alternate history story than a future story, by 2027, humans will have most likely found away to reproduce in a lab without the need for sex.

I'll take your recommendation to the ticket kiosk.

I'm surprised at the number of negative responses Stephanie's reviews attract. For example, she took quite a drubbing over her review of "The Good Shepherd," about which she was absolutely right. It was muddled and out of focus, and the characters were sketchy and unsympathetic. Damon looked like a teenager impersonating his Grand Dad, ridiculously. His son in the movie was played by an actor unknown to me, whom I hope I'll never see again. It was painful to see him on screen. The movie was absolutely awful. The plot itself played like the Cliff Notes version of a plot. A complete waste of talent, and my time.

I find it very sad you have printed several reviews based upon the opinions of those who have not yet viewed the film. COM is a painfully exquisite film. It is an appropriate tale for the holiday season. It reminds us that all life is sacred, regardless of sectarian affiliation.

Owen is in fine form, as a man once buoyed by faith and now beaten down by chance. As a life-long lover of Michael Caine, I will say this is his most enjoyable role, as a wonderful aging hippie who is devoted to his tortured wife. A cautionary tale for anyone who has ever felt ever so slightly superior to his or her less privileged neighbor, this film for all its bleakness, reminded this agnostic of the “reason for the season.”