Children of Men

Being a Friday writer, I often get to write about the choice Friday trailer releases. Today is one of those days, and Children of Men is the trailer.

First of all, I had no idea what this movie was about, who was in it, who was directing - I didn't know anything until I read the "Drama, Action, Adventure" and starring Clive Owen. I was immediately interested, but had no idea what it was about. Rather than reiterate the trailer's voice over, I'll just encourage you to go watch this excellent trailer.

Now to talk about it. I like the trailer. No, I love the trailer. The art direction is excellent. The pacing is really good, even the typography on the text is fantastic. But as this is a good trailer, mostly it just makes me excited for the movie it is advertising. There are elements in this trailer of two movies that I really liked, but had some problems with: War of the Worlds, and 28 Days Later.

Without getting into extensive reviews, I loved the beginning of War of the Worlds, as society fell apart. The masses of people trying to escape something they don't understand, the complete breakdown of society, the brutal human nature showing itself alternately in ferocious mobs and moments of utter despair. I loved when the military mobilized against the aliens, the juxtaposition of convoys driving through small roads in New England, ignoring citizens and treating home soil as a battlefield. I wanted more of the mobs, more of the highways littered with crashed cars, people turned to animals over a gun, or a car. I was significantly less interested when they started sneaking around the tripods and using some yankee ingenuity to fight back. I was bored and annoyed when there was an "everything is ok, no one even go hurt" happy ending.

28 Days later was good, but it skipped the part I was most interested in. The guy wakes up after society has collapsed, everything is destroyed and there are zombies everywhere, and that's all well and good, but really I wanted to see those 28 days. I wanted to see London collapse, I wanted to see why that bus was on its side, I wanted to see some people trying to live normally as the world destroyed itself outside. War of the Worlds did it too quickly, and 28 days later implied and talked about exactly what I wanted to see, but couldn't show it.

Then there's the Children of Men trailer - it is exactly what I wanted to see. Women have all become infertile, and it's been 18 years since a baby was born. Society is halfway through tearing itself apart. A brutal police state is supressing the growing mob who know there is nothing left to live for, and that humanity will be gone in fifty years. Yes, yes, yes. There are tanks in the street, buses and trains all have reinforced windows, security checkpoints are everywhere, but there are still coffee shops and the news is on the air, reporting the end of the world. Clive "awesome" Owen and Michael "even more awesome" Caine are in it, and neither has shaved in a while. The tanks and troops are on the streets, and bombs are going off. The sets are fantastic, the future world looks spectacularly well realized, and in short, this trailer is delicious.

When they set up the conflict, that Clive has to drive a woman across England, I did actually chuckle a bit, and clearly there is no way he will fail. Clive, after all, got his big start driving BMWs really fast and really well. Though he has since acted in dozens of good movies, he is forever the nameless "Driver" to me.

Drive, Clive, Drive.

Note: At the time of writing, the HD link on the page I linked at the beginning is broken. You can find the trailers in glorious HD here.