In the future mankind is doomed (it's amazing how many reviews I can start that way). Eighteen years have passed since a women successfully became pregnant. With no newborns, mankind faces the gloomy reality that the human race will be extinct after one more generation. Despair and social unrest sweep the world.

The story begins with Theo (Clive Owen) living a miserable and apathetic life in the UK. Before the major conflict (Theo bodyguarding Kee) begins, the story shows Theo living his everyday life; he goes to cafes, hears on TV that the world's youngest person (and 18 year-old) has passed away, talks to his friends, goes about his boring job, and wanders through a city gripped by the grim reality of impending extinction. Eventually, a former lover asks him to help smuggle a young woman, Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) out of the country. Too apathetic to see a reason to refuse, Theo agrees to help. A short while later, he is shocked to discover that Kee is pregnant. With mankind's last hope in his charge, Theo must do whatever it takes to keep this young woman alive, and smuggle her to the Human Projects where she can safely have her baby.

This is a smart way to set up events. By the time Kee finally reveals herself to be pregnant, the viewer is familiar enough with the dreary setting to understand precisely why her baby is so important. She is mankind's chance to escape extinction; Theo's chance to stop sleepwalking through life, thinking "this'll all be gone in fifty years." Everyone in the world has a personal stake in Kee, and the early portions of the movie ensure that viewers will understand this. Viewers are shown a miserable world, and then shown a way to fix it. This ensures that viewers will be emotionally engaged, and anxious for Kee to escape war-torn Great Britain and have her baby.

The story is provocative, suspenseful, dramatic, and gripping. It takes a good 'what if' scenario and turns it into a vivid and thought-provoking screenplay. The mood is always somber and dreary (in a good way), the setting feels real, the conflict keeps viewers emotionally engaged, and the action sequences are well done. I also want to give special mention to the dialogue. It's well-written, feels natural, and isn't afraid to be oddly humorous on occasion.

I won't lie, when I saw the opening scenes of this movie I was worried about the acting. I couldn't understand why Clive Owen wasn't acting sad. He wandered through the dreary setting devoid of emotion. Even terrorist bombs and unexpected abductions by his estranged wife leave him strangely unruffled.

Then, later, he has a conversation with a friend while staring dejectedly at the city through a large window:

Theo: a hundred years from now there won't be one sad ---- to look at any of this. What keeps you going?
Nigel: you know what it is, Theo? I just don't think about it.

And that's when it somehow all clicked for me. Theo doesn't act sad because he isn't sad, he's depressed. To better explain that, I'm going to quote an old friend from my fiction writing lab (he told me this while working on story about a depressed guy): "what most people don't understand is that depression doesn't make you feel sad, it makes you feel this deep...nothing." Owen seems aware that it's worse to feel empty than it is to feel sad, and makes portrays Theo as an apathetic hopeless shell of a human being. After all, in a world with no hope what's worth crying for?

When Theo finds out Kee is pregnant, there's a shift in his personality. Not a huge one, he doesn't exactly jump for joy, but he definitely gets a bit of his lost vigor back. It's not overt, but it's as strong as it needs to be.

Overall, the acting is fantastic. Kee does a great job portraying a young woman with the fate of the the world on her shoulders, Michael Caine's excellent portrayal of Jasper would have probably stolen the show if he had more screen time (of course, giving him tons of screen time would have changed the movie into a comedy, thus ruining it), and the other recurring actors do excellent work as well.

Children of Men has excellent pacing. It's not afraid to take its time with certain scenes, to create a kind of artsy feeling, yet is seems to go by quickly (I find movies I like tend to go by fast and ones I don't tend to drag on...and on...and on...and so forth). The artistic direction and action sequences may bring you back for additional screenings.

The visuals are excellent. The urban scenery fits the setting (where everything is decaying but no one can care enough to stop it), the action scenes are intense and realistic, and, most importantly, the future setting isn't overblown. There is no parade of space age technology or any of the other usual sci-fi trappings. The only thing different from today is the one thing viewers are meant to fixate on: infertility. I approve, this is perfect.

The music does a fine job of complementing the somber, suspenseful, and sometimes action-oriented mood of the film. More importantly, the music knows when to turn off. Sometimes silence is the best way to add weight to an important scene. There's one amazing scene near the end when an army is brought to a cease fire, the music goes silent, and everyone reacts to Kee. I don't want to spoil what it is, but it made me appreciate how important silence can be in a film.