Despite the limited release and lack of any clear marketing strategy during awards season by the film's distributor,[8][9][10] Children of Men received critical acclaim and was recognised for its achievements in screenwriting, cinematography, art direction, and innovative single-shot action sequences.

Theo only manages to obtain joint transit papers from his cousin, a government minister, and requests to escort Kee in exchange for a larger sum of money, which Julian agrees.

The group plans to reach the Human Project ship, the Tomorrow, scheduled to arrive offshore at Bexhill, a notorious refugee detention centre.

[38] Cuarón informed the art department that the film was the "anti-Blade Runner",[39] rejecting technologically advanced proposals and downplaying the science fiction elements of the 2027 setting.

The longest of these is a shot in which Kee gives birth (3m,19s); an ambush on a country road (4m,7s); and a scene in which Theo is captured by the Fishes, escapes, and runs down a street and through a building in the middle of a raging battle (6m,18s).

It took fourteen days to prepare for the single shot in which Clive Owen's character searches a building under attack and five hours every time they wanted to reshoot it.

Instead, a special camera rig invented by Gary Thieltges of Doggicam Systems was employed, allowing Cuarón to develop the scene as one extended shot.

"[16] Tim Webber of VFX house Framestore CFC was responsible for the three-and-a-half-minute single take of Kee giving birth, helping to choreograph and create the CG effects of the childbirth.

[52] Ambient sounds of traffic, barking dogs, and advertisements follow the character of Theo through London, East Sussex and Kent, producing what Los Angeles Times writer Kevin Crust called an "urban audio rumble".

[52] Amongst a genre-spanning selection of electronic music, a remix of Aphex Twin's "Omgyjya Switch 7", which includes the 'Male Thijs Loud Scream' audio sample by Thanvannispen[53] can be heard during an early scene in Jasper's house.

[54] For the Bexhill scenes during the film's second half, Cuarón makes use of silence and cacophonous sound effects such as the firing of automatic weapons and loudspeakers directing the movement of refugees.

[52] Classical music by George Frideric Handel, Gustav Mahler, and Krzysztof Penderecki's "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" complements the chaos of the refugee camp.

James writes "It was reasonable to struggle, to suffer, perhaps even to die, for a more just, a more compassionate society, but not in a world with no future where, all too soon, the very words 'justice', 'compassion', 'society’, 'struggle', 'evil', would be unheard echoes on an empty air.

[63] Cuarón believed that explaining things such as the cause of the infertility and the Human Project would create a "pure science-fiction movie", removing focus from the story as a metaphor for hope.

"[25] Richard Blake, writing for Catholic magazine America, suggested that like Virgil's Aeneid, Dante's The Divine Comedy, and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, the crux of the journey in Children of Men lies in what is uncovered along the path rather than the terminus itself.

"[25] Ms. James's nativity story is, in Mr. Cuarón's version, set against the image of a prisoner in an orange smock with a black bag on his head, arms stretched out as if on a cross.

This divergence from the original was criticised by some, including Anthony Sacramone of First Things, who called the film "an act of vandalism", noting the irony of how Cuarón had removed religion from P.D.

[68] Opening on Christmas Day in the United States, critics compared the characters of Theo and Kee with Joseph and Mary,[69] calling the film a "modern-day Nativity story".

Calling his score a "musical and spiritual reaction to Alfonso's film", snippets of Tavener's "Fragments of a Prayer" contain lyrics in Latin, German, and Sanskrit sung by mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly.

[74][75] Writer and film critic Laura Eldred of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill observes that Children of Men is "full of tidbits that call out to the educated viewer".

For Alter and other critics, the structural support and impetus for the contemporary references rests upon the visual nature of the film's exposition, occurring in the form of imagery as opposed to conventional dialogue.

"[32] Cuarón explains how he uses imagery in his fictional and futuristic events to allude to real, contemporary or historical incidents and beliefs, They exit the Russian apartments, and the next shot you see is this woman wailing, holding the body of her son in her arms.

One prominent aspect explored is the treatment of refugees, illustrating the regulation of life and the authoritarian tendencies mirrored in the extreme policies of the British government depicted in the film.

Extras include a half-hour documentary by director Alfonso Cuarón, entitled The Possibility of Hope (2007), which explores the intersection between the film's themes and reality with a critical analysis by eminent scholars: the Slovenian sociologist and philosopher Slavoj Žižek, anti-globalization activist Naomi Klein, environmentalist futurist James Lovelock, sociologist Saskia Sassen, human geographer Fabrizio Eva, cultural theorist Tzvetan Todorov, and philosopher and economist John N. Gray.

The site's critical consensus states: "Children of Men works on every level: as a violent chase thriller, a fantastical cautionary tale, and a sophisticated human drama about societies struggling to live.

[96] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four, writing, "Cuarón fulfills the promise of futuristic fiction; characters do not wear strange costumes or visit the moon, and the cities are not plastic hallucinations, but look just like today, except tired and shabby.

[70] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film a "superbly directed political thriller", raining accolades on the long chase scenes.

[78] Jonathan Romney of The Independent praised the accuracy of Cuarón's portrait of the United Kingdom, but he criticized some of the film's futuristic scenes as "run-of-the-mill future fantasy".

Hill highlights the film's societal stagnation and the magnetizing effect of Britain on immigrants and terrorists, emphasizing the director's intelligence in weaving speculative narratives with real-world reflections.

He applauds Cuarón's skill in creating a cinematic mirror that resonates with audiences by addressing pressing political and social concerns, all within a compelling dystopian framework.