This study of social ills and the evils of a Big Brother government is a thought provoking and intense film that is deserving of the praise and accolades it has garnered.
The HD-DVD picture quality is technically very sound and the level of detail is quite high and the subdued hues look very realistic. Every frame of "Children of Men" is visually busy with apocalyptic imagery. This allows for a wealth of detail and the transfer succeeds with flying colors. The outdoor scenes around Jasper´s refugee camp show strong detail for each leaf and pebble and this is done with low lighting. You can read numerous headlines on the newspapers that are plastered and scattered everywhere. The blown out buildings of the concentration city for the foreigners show as much destruction as cities bombed during the Second World War. All of this is highly detailed. Black levels and shadow detail are strong and help delineate the features present on screen. There are no digital flaws to be found and any trace of non-purposeful dirt and grain are practically non-existent. For as ugly as the film is intended to be, it looks very good.
Sound:
Packaged with only a Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtrack, "Children of Men" is still audibly impressive. The film´s big climactic moments where Kee and Theo are under siege by a terrorist organization and the British military erupts with gunfire and explosions from every imaginable direction and all six channels help to convey this. The .1 LFE channel is very deep and powerful. This was very evident during this all-out war scene and another moment when Michael Caine´s character turns on the "Zen Music," which brought the film from a relaxing peace to a violent orgy of sound. This film is about the decay of society and the ever-increasing violence and police force that struggles for control. This requires strong sound design and the Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix does more than its job in keeping "Children of Sound" up to the task. Dialogue is equally strong and the wonderful British accents are carried nicely to one´s ears. This film is as audibly busy as it is visually and although I was hoping for a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack, I am more than pleased with this disc.
Extras:
"Children of Men" arrives on HD-DVD with all of the supplements from its standard definition release (which is glued to its backside) and Universal´s U-Control "immersive entertainment experience." With no commentary tracks provided, the U-Control is the sole supplement that occurs while the film plays. Universal includes three aspects of their technology with "Children of Men." The Picture-in-Picture inclusions resize the film´s main display window and a small pop-up picture populates the right margin and slightly overlaps the film. These moments occurred throughout the film and provided a good amount of information on the making of the film. The Info sections featured graphical displays of various signage and newspaper pages that appeared throughout the film. Sadly, they were difficult to read, but the headlines were very interesting. Finally, the U-Control provides Commercials. This was some of the better moments of the U-Control. I especially liked the Gap parody, Ruf, that featured very high priced fashions for animals. The commercials were mostly in the beginning third of the film, but they were quite entertaining. If only they could have occupied the entire screen.
The features that occupied both sides of the disc were plentiful and worth checking out. Some of the features spin it philosophical. The Possibility of Hope (27:14) is a lengthy documentary created by the film´s director. This is not necessarily a production on the making of the film, but it deals with the social issues depicted in the picture. Some of the accents were hard to digest and this was a featurettes that would be embraced by many social studies or philosophy teachers. This was a deep and though provoking short film that brought a better understanding of the film, but it is not for the overly opinionated or those wanting to just be entertained with a story. The Children of Men Comments by Slavoj Zizek (5:44) felt like an extension of the larger "Possibility of Hope" as Social Critic and Philosopher Slavoj Zizek uses his heavy accent to force the viewer to pay amazingly close attention to every word he says.
A few more mainstream features are also included for "Children of Men." The always welcome Deleted Scenes were only 2:19 in length. These three scenes were short and added nothing to the picture, but I do enjoy deleted scenes. Under Attack (7:35) focuses on the camera takes used in the film. These very long takes were used to help reinforce the concept of real time. This made for a lot of hard work in bringing the scenes to life by Director of Photography Emmanuel Lubezki. Theo and Julian (4:40) looks at how the characters were influenced by the actors and how Clive Owen and Julianne Moore helped build their characters and actions. Futuristic Design (8:37) looks at the production design that brought the shabby and decrepit world of "Children of Men" to life. This was another good supplement that looked at the making of the film. Finally, Visual Effects: Creating the Baby (3:06) is a short look at the eerie CGI baby that helped create a convincing child birth sequence in the film and allowed for imagery of a baby being thrust into the world an carried through a major destructive offensive.
Closing Comments:
"Children of Men" is another fine entry into the Dystopian Future sub-genre of science fiction. It joins dignitaries "Brazil," "1984" and "Metropolis" as a depressed look at a world where life exists without hope and saddened eyes look to a horizon that only brings death. This is a film that looks as depressing as the story it weaves. Violence and Governmental control struggle for power and it is hard to decide which is the greater evil. Clive Owen and Claire-Hope Ashitey deserve a lot of praise for their acting performances and director Alfonso Cuarón has created a startling and powerful world for their characters to exist in. This study of social ills and the evils of a Big Brother government is a thought provoking and intense film that is deserving of the praise and accolades it has garnered.
The wretched visuals are done justice with a sharp looking HD-DVD transfer. The powerful and aggressive soundtrack delivers the conflict, pain and suffering with intensity. The supplements take slightly longer than an hour to sit through, but perfectly fit the feeling and message of the picture. Half of the supplements are directly geared to the philosophical questions raised by the film. The remaining entries look at how the film was created and the U-Control may not be as good as other Universal entries, but provides a nice interactive experience for viewers. This is a great HD-DVD that looks very nice sitting next to my Criterion Collection box set of "Brazil" and would fit nicely with almost any collection. This was certainly one of the better films of 2006 and one of the better HD-DVD releases thus far into 2007.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]20541[/release]