Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The disappointment of an infertile story

After a painfully long waiting, I finally got to see the latest work of Alfonso Cuaron, Children of men, a promising sci-fi about a time in the near future, 2027 exactly, where for some unknown reasons, the man kind has lost the ability to reproduce. The rest is the quest of the movie’s protagonist, played by Clive Owen, to get the only pregnant woman in the world to the apparently safe hands of a vaguely described group of scientists called “The human Project”, amidst all the chaos and disorder cause by this catastrophic pandemic of infertility.

Children of men powerfully starts, acceptably mediocre continues and pathetically poor finishes. Despite the brilliance of the idea behind the story, the scenario is so incredibly badly done that it even overshadows one of the best cinematography of the modern cinema. It is indeed twice upsetting since the same idea, had it been developed more eloquently, it could have been one of the best science fiction of the recent years.

Having said those, I should also mention that it is not a bad film at all. Even carrying the weight of this wretched screenplay, it is still considerably better than most of the Hollywood’s productions, by all means. All the disappointments, in fact, arises form the legitimately elevated expectations from such a genius as Alfonso Cuaron. If he only stick with the well written stories like Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban or Y tu mama tambien and do not waste his abundant talent and technique and his potentials on such a pitiful screenplay, he could truly make magic!