Set in a near future in the year 2027 where the human race has lost its ability to reproduce, England descends into chaos when the world's youngest citizen dies at 18 years of age. As London is torn apart by violence and warring nationalistic sects, disillusioned bureaucrat Theo (Clive Owen) becomes an unlikely champion of Earth's survival. When the planet's last remaining hope -- lone pregnant woman Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) -- is threatened, this reluctant activist is forced to face his own demons and protect her from certain peril.

Based on the best-selling novel by P.D. James.

Children of Men takes a profound and deep look into the degenirization of our society. Torn by crime, violence and the indifference of mankind to its fellow man what if all this led to our inability to continue our own existence as a race. What if our punishment, our karma, for our crimes against mankind and mother nature was for mother nature to take away our ability to procreate, to continue to bring children into the world of madness that we had created. And without the sound of children in the world, the sounds of joy, the sounds on innocence, the sounds of laughter of the young would our plight be worse, would the violence grow to an escalated height of insanity. This is a deep and troubling look at our world, the way our world could be, the way we could be. It touches you, to think the youngest person alive is eighteen years old not a child but almost an adult living in a world tearing itself apart from the grief and the agony that the end is near. The movie moved me to say the least, it stirred be and was powerful and amazing and one of the years best.

I am not afraid to admit that I cried when Clive Owen and Claire-Hope Ashitey in the middle of a gunfight walked down the stairs with a crying baby in their arms and everyone stopped in wonder and awe at the sound of a child in their midst to take a moment amidst all the madness and the war to stop and see for just a moment that there just might be a future after all. The power and emotion of that one scene was enough to bring me to tears, how the sound of a baby crying in a world that had been without such sound for eighteen years could stop the madness and fighting with the wonder and awe of such a simple thing. The movie is like that as well amid all the action and the fighting and the wars there is this sense of emotion and power of a woman pregnant when there has been no one pregnant in so long. The movie has heart and it has emotion and it is powerful even though it is full of brutality and violence and war. Much like our own society is, despite all the wars and all the brutality we still have emotion and heart and that is a powerful and gives hope when there should be none.

Clive Owen is one of my favorite actors, he can give a rousing action performance as well as a dramatic one like he does in Children of Men. You can see him wielding a gun fighting off the degenerates of mankind, all the while lamenting in a sense of despair and depression at his own child being a victim of mankind’s own folly. He can be the hero, the anti-hero all at the same time and that is a powerful actor if you ever did see one. Michael Caine is the humor and levity of the film, and seeing him with jesus hair is quite humorous in itself. He brings a sense of lightness and levity in the midst of a film filled with action, drama, powerful emotion and the degeneration of society. Julianne Moore could have been played by any number of female actors though and she is in the movie only in brevity to bring out the human turmoil in Clive Owen. The film moved me to tears in fact, I loved the action and the movie was a powerful glimpse at a possible future.

Grade: A