On Jan. 5, after being pushed back several times, Universal Pictures’ “Children of Men” made its long-overdue debut in theaters. Director Alfonso Cuaron creates a chilling picture of a world experiencing its own collapse in grim slow-motion. In 2027, 18 years of unexplained infertility among women threatens humanity’s existence as the population disappears generation-by-generation and social stability unhinges along with it.

I’d been waiting for months to see this movie. But as I sat in the packed theater, filled with bodies of all ages, I couldn’t help but focus on the irony that this movie explores a natural occurrence which is also long overdue – a thinning of the herd in epic proportions.

Anyone possessing average intelligence and the appropriate data can see that the human race, made famous by the invention of fire and the “Tickle Me Elmo”, has been incapable of staying out of the bedroom long enough to notice we’re procreating ourselves to death. Our advanced species periodically needs to be kept in line by a swift backhand from the personified concept of our planet which, to avoid sounding sexist, I shall refer to as Parent Earth.

Throughout history, as the children of men had their own children at a rapid-fire pace, and those brats got drunk at a parties and couldn’t be held accountable for their actions that night, Parent Earth stepped in and gave the world a good old-fashion spanking – generally in the form of a virulent disease that nearly cut the human population in half. Yet here we are, more rebellious than ever and perfecting an exponential growth rate.

Like a kid begging for attention through misbehavior, we just can’t seem to stop “acting out” by having babies and stubbornly outliving our own usefulness. So, where’s that good old tough love from Parent Earth?

To be fair, the ground we stand on is getting a bit old and probably tired of cleaning up after us, or cleaning us up, or however you’d like to look at it. We’re overdue for a disease, experts claim the super volcano under Yellowstone is a few thousand years behind schedule, and we all know that global warming is just another hoax dreamed up by left-wing hippies – so even our own efforts to wipe ourselves out are only yielding imaginary effects.

“Children of Men” creates a new scenario of destruction – not cataclysmic like an tsunami or asteroid, just the slow and horrifying punishment of Earth finally getting fed up and giving its kids until the end of the month to move out. It is possible that this end to mankind would be the worst to experience because of the prolonged sense of hopelessness. In the film, this hopelessness results, essentially, in the global collapse of civilization.

“Children of Men” is set in a world where humans are forsaken and universally disowned.

If it weren’t for the hope-inspiring discovery of a pregnant girl named Kee, whose transport to The Human Project becomes the driving force behind the movie’s plot, “Children of Men'”‘s portrayal of human demise would make death by pandemic seem like a quick and pleasant way to go.

Now, I’m as uneasy as anyone else about being engulfed by lava or dying of the plague. I’m certainly not excited about the day Papa/Mama Earth loses his/her cool and slaps us around for drawing on the walls with crayon and playing in the street. But, as “Children of Men” shows us, a spanking that comes on time is better than an eviction that comes later. Let’s just say I’m just a stickler for punctuality.