Director Alfonso Cuaron is slowly building a reputation as a Jack-Of-All-Trades filmmaker. He's dipped a toe in fairy tales (A Little Princess), delivered a top-notch road movie (Y Tu Mama Tambien) and his Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban managed to be the only one not to look like a TV movie with a bloated budget. Here Cuaron returns to straight literary adaptations (he has already 'modernised' Great Expectations) with P.D James' pre-apocalyptic sci-fi novel.
It's 2027, and humankind faces extinction, as women have not being able to conceive in 18 years. As populations are reduced to nothing and countries collapse, African and Eastern European refugees converge on England, creating a hotbed of racial tensions. Theo Faron (Owen), an ex-activist turned bureaucrat, is charged with transporting a woman, who has mysteriously become pregnant, from London to a seaside sanctuary. The range of topics you can explore in a novel are endless but with film, you've only got a certain amount of time to get your ideas up on screen - and they all better be relevant to the plot. Cuaron tries to include too much in his film and ends up never really attacking any particular issue, a ploy that becomes frustrating.
On the credit side, Cuaron shows us a believable London racked by turmoil and street fighting - something the recent V For Vendetta failed to do. The performances are all top drawer: the ever-dependable Owen is again, dependable, Moore seems to have recovered from her woefully miscast role in Trust The Man, but the pick of the bunch is Caine, delightfully playing against type as the hippie sage Owen meets on his odyssey.