« Do Second Lifers dream of Electric Sheep? | Main | What's the matter? » John Shirley on "Children of Men"John Shirley, main instigator of the cyberpunk literary genre, says Cuaron's Children of Men "is truly masterful film making." [Link] One of the great things about this cyberpunkesque dystopian film about a near-future where people can no longer reproduce and society has imploded, is that it’s an action movie without action movie cliches–the hero, Clive Owens (he’s very good), never kills anyone (well he bashes a guy in the head with a car battery once), never shoots anyone, never hangs from the runners of helicopters or runs from a fireball. But it’s paced like an action movie and there’s achingly realistic jeopardy in it. Cuaron has a climactic scene, with a lot of police-versus-terrorist mayhem going on, that is all one long shot and he does it magnificently, it’s incredibly well choreographed. Clive Owens’ barefoot, animal-loving Theo seems to be a St Francis of Assisi figure, rather than an action hero. The girl who plays the world’s only pregnant woman is wonderful but especially fine is Michael Caine as an aging hipster, a stony idealist… jon posted this at 11:46 PM |
read weblogsky! latest posts: |
