MOVIE TITLE: Children of Men (two-disc special edition)

RATING:(A+ entertainment)

RUNNING TIME: 1 hr. 49 mins.

BONUS FEATURES: Deleted scenes, special features on futuristic design, visual effects (creating the baby), The Possibility of Hope (a documentary on the themes of Children of Men), Theo and Julian, subtitle tracks in English, Thai, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Cantonese and Indonesian.

WHO'S IN IT: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Set in 2027, this story surrounds a society that has lost its way and its future. It has been 18 years since the birth of a child and the youngest human being on the planet (the latest version of a superstar), an 18-year-old boy, has been murdered. The movie is set in Britain, by then the most wretched place on earth, and attempts to show what will ultimately happen when tradition is eroded, when fear and despair take over. Britain makes an appropriate setting because that society rests mainly on tradition and is not governed by a constitution, so when people no longer care to maintain tradition the effects are extreme. The movie is rife with symbolism - scientists gather to figure out why women have stopped reproducing while they dine on storks; the Michelangelo sculpture of 'David' is shown in a sterile loft high above the decaying city with a prosthetic as one leg and the one pregnant woman, whom the hero Theo (Owen) tries to protect, is a young black, refugee. (Talk about irony).

The hero himself is anything but heroic. He is an ordinary guy, experiencing the same kind of malaise, apathy and disillusionment as everyone else. He is unwillingly drawn into the plot to protect the mother and insists on getting paid. He is passive, doesn't fight back and barely gets one step ahead. He loses his shoes (which self-respecting hero loses his shoes?) and attempts to preserve our only hope wearing flip flops.

LONG STORY SHORT: The movie suggests what the world will become when all our traditions are eroded and man is more loyal to his ideas than to other human beings. It ultimately states that man's only hope in such a situation is to form a new society, sever its roots and start over.

THE REEL LOW-DOWN: If you like political dramas like Lord of War, you will like this.

- Alicia Roache

The movie suggests what the world will become when all our traditions are eroded and man is more loyal to his ideas than to other human beings.

Political Drama