Children of Men

6.5/10. Saw this yesterday afternoon at the Gotthard in Bern.

Its politics are as heavy-handed as its characters are hastily-drawn, and its plot seems to have been constructed using a template for sci-fi movies about totalitarian governments, the rebels that oppose them, and the normal folk caught in between.

Good thing, then, that the movie was directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Previous credits include A Little Princess, one of my all-time favorite family movies; the bawdy coming-of-age road movie Y tu mamá también; and Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, the only Potter movie so far that stands on its own as a work of art. What Cuarón achieves visually and aurally in Children of Men, particularly in its staggering final act, makes an otherwise unremarkable movie worth seeing.