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An utterly uncompromising, unrelenting, unparalleled vision of a dark future in which, without the promise of and responsibility toward a new generation, humanity goes totally off-kilter.
But you know, I need take part of that back.
There are times when Children of Men relents, and they stand out like an green oasis in a savage but sublime desert.
The time that really stands out is almost at the end, when Theo descends the stairs in the hideous shot-up slum building, carrying the first human born in eighteen years. The officer in charge of the soldiers storming the building immediately calls a cease-fire. Men cry and cross themselves. After decades of cruelty and treating each other like dirt, the rules immediately change when a baby shows up.
That, as much as the happy babble of children over the closing credits that hints that the "Human Project" has pulled it off, implies that humanity, after all the savagery, is redeemable.
