Although it wasn’t a box-office hit, a respected film in the dystopian sci-fi genre has become one of the most popular movies on streaming. The film, which some might remember for its mind-blowing one-shot action sequences, has re-emerged 20 years after its release. While calling it realistic might be a stretch, this depiction of the future is disturbingly close to our current reality, and it’s one we definitely don’t want to live in.
A Different Kind of Sci-Fi Dystopia
The film is Children of Men, Alfonso Cuarón’s modern sci-fi gem, which lacks fancy special effects or the usual futuristic setting. Instead, the film brings viewers into a bleaker dystopian future, in which the human race is on the brink of extinction. Humanity has become infertile, and no one has been born in decades. Society starts collapsing as the world’s youngest person is killed, and Great Britain seems to be the only remaining livable place on the planet.
Theo Faron is a former activist who’s recruited by the organization he used to be part of, who offer him money to carry out a critical mission. All he must do is protect a young woman amid political and social turmoil. When Theo digs deeper into why Kee is so important, he’s faced with a decision that could change the course of humanity.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film earned a 92% critics’ score and an 85% audience score. It remains one of the director’s highest-rated projects alongside Gravity and A Little Princess. For stars Julianne Moore and Clive Owen, it also ranks among the highest-rated in their careers.
Famed critic Roger Ebert stood among the many fans of the film. Praising Cuarón’s world-building beyond typical sci-fi conventions, he wrote the following in his four-star (the highest rating in his system) review: “Cuarón fulfills the promise of futuristic fiction; characters do not wear strange costumes or visit the moon, and the cities are not plastic hallucinations, but look just like today, except tired and shabby. Here is certainly a world ending not with a bang but a whimper, and the film serves as a cautionary warning. The only thing we will have to fear in the future, we learn, is the past itself. Our past. Ourselves.”
‘Children of Men’ Finds a Much-Deserved Second Life on Streaming
Children of Men arrived in theaters in December 2006, and despite an initially good critical reception, the film faded from public memory quickly. It only grossed a little over $70 million against a $76 million production budget and was deemed a commercial flop for Cuarón. Although it wasn’t commercially successful, the critical reception was good enough to earn him the studio’s trust to make the groundbreaking sci-fi film Gravity.
20 years after its release, Children of Men has become one of the biggest movies in the world. According to the latest update to the streaming charts, the film sits at No. 9 on HBO Max‘s most-watched movies globally, ranking below much more recent titles such as Halloween Kills, Halloween Ends, and Mortal Kombat II.
- Release Date
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January 5, 2007
- Runtime
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109 minutes
