The film opens with a news report telling the death of Baby Diego, the youngest human on the planet. Why someone would shoot him, we do not know. Maybe one of those circumstancial celebrities like big brother winners who think they're famous but really aren't. But most of the time we don't even have a point for celebrities, theyre famous people who have gotten above their post. There is nothing wrong with famous people, the game creators, authors or illustrators but the people who relish the limelight for kicking a ball around a field better than others are pointless. We need to idolise the people who have talent. Heck not even the gold medal winners get as much attention as your average Primier Leaguer. Yes I hate football.
Back to the story, Theo Faron takes the day off work to see his friend Jasper. They talk and eat and smoke and have a great time in this bad future. It is on his way home that Theo is abducted and taken into a newspapered room. It is here that he is asked to join in the activites of the rebellious group to reform the country. Theo refuses to help and is let go, it is only when he is thrown in at the deep end and asked personally by Kee to help, that he does.
From here, Theo, Miriam, Kee, Luke and Julian drive through the countryside to escape to the coast, from the coast they will send Kee to a Sanctuary where she will be save and even help restore fertility to the planet. They leave in a single car yet get attacked by a group of Forest dwellers, who can hardly do anything running to it with just sticks. There is one dirt bike however that catches up to the car and fires through the windscreen. Even though it was a little obvious to duck at this point, Julian gets shot through the shoulder and dies shortly after. Its a little strange having the death of a main character happen casually like it did and then still being inside the action to accept it. It was a good idea to have a section in the forest where Julian was buried and Theo needed time to himself to grieve her death.
On the road, they find a little settlement which promises to help take Kee to the coast and then to the people she needs to get to to be safe. They all go power crazy and decide to kill everyone except Kee and claim the glory. Theo takes his group and they escape to Jaspers, then arrange to be arrested and put into the immigrant slum town. Unfortunately while on the immigrant delivery bus, Miriam is thrown out into one of the stations along the way while protecting Kee whose waters have broken. As the bus drives off we get to see the timeline of the people taken off at this point. Their heads are bagged and knocked to the ground in front of everyone, they are killed in front of the cages and finally their bodies are thrown onto a corpse pile. It is only to be assumed that this was Miriams fate too.
They get to the slum town easily and Theo delivers Kee's baby in an empty shack room. This may have been to recreate the nativity, having such a simple birth for something so special. There is no time to dawdle as it seems the inhabitants from oversees are going to start an uprising against their overseers. It wont be safe to stay still and it is also the pefect distraction to get to the coast unnoticed. A dash from the room Theo and Kee were staying in to the coast begins but alas, they get stopped by the evil people from the shack that wanted to kill them before. They wheel off Kee (in a wheelchair at this point) and are told to execute Theo, the gypsy lady who gave them the room and an indian guy who knew the way. Unfortunately the indian guy is the first to go but fortunately the group gets ambushed and the Shack people are forced to fight. Theo runs off and discovers a large building that Kee is inside and gets inside just as it becomes underfire. Kee is found inside the building along with the Shack Dweller leader. He weakly tries to get Theo to hand over the baby one last time, commenting about his sister and how beautiful they are the whole time firing through a hole in the wall. Theo takes the chance to escape but gets shot in the shoulder before the shack leader is hit by a tank shell. The baby cries and it causes everyone around to stop and look at the baby.
Theo leads Kee down the stairs, the whole time the baby cries and the people stare and sing. Near the bottom they encounter the soldiers who call a ceasefire. The baby is carried between the lines of soldiers who pray and look on in amazement until someone decides to ruin the magical moment by firing a grenade. From here, Theo and Kee are given a boat by the gypsy lady and row out to the buoy, before the sanctuary ship appears, Theo gives in to his injuries and dies.
This film is quite well done in its camera work. We saw the making off and how they'd rigged up the car to have a camera pass through it without once having to stop the filming. How they hid everything and got it all to flow so well i dont know but it was very interesting to see how it was done. The again if i hadn't i never would have noticed.
I'd also heard that many shots in this film were done in one take, such as the driving section and the climax near the end of the film. From the point the group first see the fighting until Theo gets shot is more than likely one take and that is around an 8 minute take. The giveaway are the blood spatters on the camera lens which do decrease in number within the minute after they're splattered onto it.
I also read on Wikipedia that the book is totally different to the film. Kee doesn't exist in the film at all and Theo's government position is more evident. The fish use him to ask for change in the world rather than delivering the pregnant woman to the coast. Also the father of the baby is known and overall the film seems less like a journey and much more like an Overthrow of a powerful figure.
The film itself is a good one, its filmed well and the story is easy to follow, even if there are alot of characters. The sets are well designed showing a great contrast between the forests and the bombed out cities. 9/10, could have been better if we;d seen the making of second so that we didnt have to see almost every scene 4 times
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