Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
Okay, here are some random thoughts in no particular order. It's been more than a month since I saw this turd of a movie, so pardon me if some of my recollections aren't entirely accurate. And I will concede none of these complaints is necessarily a deal breaker all on its own. But taken as a whole, there are just too many dumb things for the movie to be taken seriously.
I honestly think this movie was conceived by someone who had some cool visuals in their mind (a plane crashing on the beach, mobs of deer standing in a circle, a super-tanker beaching itself, a hundred white Teslas smashing into each other, Manhattan burning, etc.), and then they decided to see if they could string it all together into a movie.
First of all, just to be clear, what is "happening“ is not an attack by aliens, paranormal activity, or supernatural. The movie reveals it just is some sort of terrorist attack, military attack, or sabotage of our infrastructure. Fine. I get that the characters don't have a clear understanding what is happening, so neither do we as viewers. No problem with that. I don't want everything laid out on silver platter. There needs to be mystery and unknown stuff.
So with that in mind, all the events must therefore be viewed in the context of what would happen if there was a war or wide-spread terrorist event. It's not aliens with superpowers. So, how do you explain strange things, such as dozens of deer coming out of the woods and staring at the girl? How is that caused by military or terrorism? Why does movie spend so much time with the kids creeping around an old cabin in the woods and the son teasing the daughter that a peeping tom is watching her in her bedroom from the cabin. How does that advance the story? I was expecting Michael Myers to make a cameo.
Why is the electricity still on????? Never does the electricity flicker even once. The very first thing an invading army or terrorists would do is kill the power grid. But that would have changed the entire story -- and the filmmakers didn't want to do that. They had other plans.
It is implied the family drives quite a way out on Long Island to reach the Hamptons or some other rural community out in the country, but later, when a drone rises over their heads, we see they are only about a mile from the East River and Manhattan can't be more than five miles away. What happened to Queens and Brooklyn? You can't be out in the country and also steps away from Manhattan at the same time.
I find it hard to believe that a rich family would be renting their multi-million-dollar home to strangers, or that those well-heeled homeowners would even need the extra cash. And if they were going to rent it to strangers, wouldn't they take more precautions to secure their valuables?
The homeowner and his daughter show up in the middle of the night seeking shelter. But they don't introduce themselves and apologize for the intrusion. They stand there looking and sounding all suspicious as details are dragged out of them scrap by scrap. The only reason for this phony interaction is to create some false tension that is totally unrealistic. Normal people would say "Hey, I'm Jim and this is my daughter Mary. We are the owners of this house. Something strange is happening in the city so we hope you don't mind if we came out to our house seeking shelter. We realize you are renting it from us, but we're hoping you could take us in. Here's my ID and/or other proof that I am who I say I am. Now, let me tell you what happened to us in the city and what we think is happening . . . " Something like that would have been more realistic.
How do you explain the loud, piercing noises? There is no technology that can transmit that kind of powerful audible signal over a widespread area. And what would be the purpose even if you could? It's obvious the only purpose is for the filmmakers to have another strange thing happen to the characters.
Why are there flamingos in the pool? Where did they come from? How was this caused by terrorism or war?
Why are we shown huge flocks of birds? How was this caused by terrorism or war? And why aren't any of the animals affected by the shrill high-pitched noises and radiation?
Speaking of the white daughter, 99% of her acting is just looking at something in the distance with a concerned/confused/constipated look on her face. I honestly hope she wins an Oscar for it. In fact, you could cut together a 10-minute montage of nothing but the girl looking off-camera at something with a blank look on her face. That's her entire role. Amazing performance, really.
Okay, I exaggerated. She's also obsessed with watching a rerun of an old TV show. The world is falling apart around her, and her main objective is to watch reruns. Nice character development.
The black daughter is a snotty, self-righteous, ***** for no apparent reason. What's her problem? Later she accuses Julia of being an angry *****, but they both are. And with a pussy like Ethan Hawke for a husband, well, I guess she is used to wearing the pants in that household.
Why is the son afflicted with serious radiation poisoning (if that's what it is??), but everyone else is 100% normal? The boy went nowhere that other people didn't also go. So why is he the only one with teeth already falling out? Why not his hair too?
Why do they think Kevin Bacon has a horde of (unnamed) "medicine" that will help the boy? Especially since they don't even know what affliction he has. This is just a made-up bullshit storyline to have a porch-front confrontation over nothing at all. The showdown with Bacon is just stupid and unrealistic.
In hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, mass shooting events. terrorism events, etc. Aemricans have shown that come together and help each other. We see it over and over again. I find the implication that society would breakdown so quickly and neighbors not helping each other to be totally insulting.
Speaking of Kevin Bacon, why does he catch the eye of Julia Roberts in the parking lot at a grocery store just because he's loading a few cases of water into his truck? Why is that seen as strange? Why would you look at him and stare as if he had his pants around his ankles? Not only is he parked quite a distance away, but there’s also a hundred reasons people buy cases of bottled water. Maybe he's a little league coach.
Besides, if he is the "prepper" that we are supposed to believe he is, there's no way he'd be buying a few dozen single-serve bottles of water at the last minute. Dumb.
Ethan Hawke's character is such a pussy. How is it that a grown man can manage to get himself lost on a two-lane country road with seemingly no intersections? He works himself into a panic over nothing at all. How is the road any different than any other day? Why is he suddenly lost and freaking out? There's only one road!! Turnaround and go back the way you came from if you are that much of a child.
So, while out on the road he comes across a middle-age hysterical Spanish speaking woman on the side of the road in the middle nowhere. Let's just ignore how a woman suddenly appears out of nowhere on a country road and starts banging on the window. Let's assume maybe she was taking a nap in the ditch. Of course, since he doesn’t understand Spanish, and has no idea what she is trying to communicate, he basically tells her to **** off and he drives away while she pleads for help clinging to the car and banging on the window. Nice guy. Would you just drive off and leave her there? No, you wouldn't ,and neither would 99% of all humans in the same circumstances. Just stupid. The filmmakers wanted the shock value of the woman coming out of nowhere, and then didn't know what to do with her after that. So, just drive off! She doesn't speak English, so therefore doesn't matter at all.
And then thousands of flyers are dropped right on Hawke's car. And this litter frightens him very much -- as we can see by the exaggerated emotions on his face. Oh no, sheets of paper!!! But why would anyone want to dump all the flyers right on top of a single person? What is the point?
Why are there so many brand-new Teslas -- all the same exact model and color -- on Long Island? Not possible. No other colors of Teslas are sold? No other models? And they are somehow being commanded to drive down the road and rear-end the next one in line? Why only new Teslas, why aren't used Teslas also affected? What is the point of the Tesla scene other than to provide an interesting visual? It's just not credible. I gotta say the close-up on the window sticker about "self-driving" cars really helped sell it. Nice touch.
When they first encounter the Teslas they are in the country with nothing on the horizon except for a body of water and small trees. As they drive away from the traffic jam the aerial shot reveals they are about 5 miles from Manhattan and its many bridges. So where are all the other people on Long Island? We only see Kevin Bacon and a crazy Spanish-speaking woman. Nobody else. Why aren't there literally hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming out of the city -- not to mention the over 7 million inhabitants who live on Long Island already. What happened to them all? Conveniently ignored.
So, a guy drives onto his neighbor’s driveway and parks. He is there for about a minute using his phone before he realizes the house and yard have been hit by a tornado or something. How is it that he could pull all the way onto a circular driveway and yet wouldn’t have seen all that damage and debris from the moment he pulled in?
Then he gets out and walks through the house and into the backyard and beach. The first thing that catches his eye is the face of a watch neatly buried in the sand. Nothing else showing except the face. He goes to pick it up and - surprise surprise - there is a hand connected to it. But that’s not all, there's also an arm. And then a whole body of a pilot. Only now does the man look around and see 10,000+ pieces of aircraft debris just a few feet away. Stuff everywhere as far as the eye can see. But what caught his eye? The face of a watch buried in the sand. No smell of jet fuel?
Also, notice that by the end of the scene the pilot isn't even buried anymore. His full body is just laying on the hard packed beach. Where did all the sand go that was burying him 5 seconds earlier?
Wait a second, oh no!!! There's another plane going to crash at the exact same point on earth. No problem, he can out-run it and go into the neighbor's house where he closes the door in the nick of time. Whew, that was close! Fortunately, all the windows get blown out with the force of a nuclear bomb, but the wall stands firm. Fantastic. I want to hire that contractor.
The dancing scene in the basement was just silly and embarrassing. "Hey, the world is being destroyed, but you've got some real toe-tappers here. Let's dance!" And now we know for sure that Julia Robert's dancing moves are almost as good as her acting skills. I haven't seen such great dancing since we saw Elaine Benes at the Christmas party on Seinfeld.
"Hey, even though the world is ending, after we dance in the basement, let's hang out by the pool and sip a cool drink. The apocalypse can wait!! We are on vacation. Let's swim and sunbathe. I hear that radiation gives you a nice tan."
Common sense says that a super-tanker would strike sea bottom and come to a halt hundreds of yards off the beach on Long Island. No way could it plow itself that deep ashore. Notice that in one shot, forward motion has nearly stopped, but in the next shot it is chugging along quite nicely again and throwing more sand. Dumb.
Why is the ship coming ashore in the first place? Where is the crew? Why wouldn't they disengage auto-pilot and stop the ship or change course. This was just a dumb plot device to add drama and some special effects. I also love it how everyone just calmly goes home after a giant super tanker nearly runs them over.
And as soon as they leave the beach, Julia says "let's go to Starbucks". And then we see a close-up of a Starbucks cup. End of storyline. Clearly just a blatant product placement that serves no purpose in the story.
Funny how nobody ever suggests stockpiling food, water, or any other provisions. I guess maybe Ethan Hawke is scared he'll get lost driving to the Piggly Wiggly, or that Kevin Bacon already horded all the good stuff. But there must be a couple of packets of Ramen still on the shelves, right?
Finally, I found the upside-down compositions and twirling technocrane shots to be really off-putting. They totally took me out of the story and only emphasized how little was actually going on in the movie. If you took away the music and the crazy camera moves, there's nothing here but a made-for-TV movie with cheesy effects, red herrings, and big-name stars looking to cash in.
If you want to see a great apocalyptic movie, go watch The Road with Viggo Mortenson. Or better yet, read The Stand by Stephen King.
I honestly think this movie was conceived by someone who had some cool visuals in their mind (a plane crashing on the beach, mobs of deer standing in a circle, a super-tanker beaching itself, a hundred white Teslas smashing into each other, Manhattan burning, etc.), and then they decided to see if they could string it all together into a movie.
First of all, just to be clear, what is "happening“ is not an attack by aliens, paranormal activity, or supernatural. The movie reveals it just is some sort of terrorist attack, military attack, or sabotage of our infrastructure. Fine. I get that the characters don't have a clear understanding what is happening, so neither do we as viewers. No problem with that. I don't want everything laid out on silver platter. There needs to be mystery and unknown stuff.
So with that in mind, all the events must therefore be viewed in the context of what would happen if there was a war or wide-spread terrorist event. It's not aliens with superpowers. So, how do you explain strange things, such as dozens of deer coming out of the woods and staring at the girl? How is that caused by military or terrorism? Why does movie spend so much time with the kids creeping around an old cabin in the woods and the son teasing the daughter that a peeping tom is watching her in her bedroom from the cabin. How does that advance the story? I was expecting Michael Myers to make a cameo.
Why is the electricity still on????? Never does the electricity flicker even once. The very first thing an invading army or terrorists would do is kill the power grid. But that would have changed the entire story -- and the filmmakers didn't want to do that. They had other plans.
It is implied the family drives quite a way out on Long Island to reach the Hamptons or some other rural community out in the country, but later, when a drone rises over their heads, we see they are only about a mile from the East River and Manhattan can't be more than five miles away. What happened to Queens and Brooklyn? You can't be out in the country and also steps away from Manhattan at the same time.
I find it hard to believe that a rich family would be renting their multi-million-dollar home to strangers, or that those well-heeled homeowners would even need the extra cash. And if they were going to rent it to strangers, wouldn't they take more precautions to secure their valuables?
The homeowner and his daughter show up in the middle of the night seeking shelter. But they don't introduce themselves and apologize for the intrusion. They stand there looking and sounding all suspicious as details are dragged out of them scrap by scrap. The only reason for this phony interaction is to create some false tension that is totally unrealistic. Normal people would say "Hey, I'm Jim and this is my daughter Mary. We are the owners of this house. Something strange is happening in the city so we hope you don't mind if we came out to our house seeking shelter. We realize you are renting it from us, but we're hoping you could take us in. Here's my ID and/or other proof that I am who I say I am. Now, let me tell you what happened to us in the city and what we think is happening . . . " Something like that would have been more realistic.
How do you explain the loud, piercing noises? There is no technology that can transmit that kind of powerful audible signal over a widespread area. And what would be the purpose even if you could? It's obvious the only purpose is for the filmmakers to have another strange thing happen to the characters.
Why are there flamingos in the pool? Where did they come from? How was this caused by terrorism or war?
Why are we shown huge flocks of birds? How was this caused by terrorism or war? And why aren't any of the animals affected by the shrill high-pitched noises and radiation?
Speaking of the white daughter, 99% of her acting is just looking at something in the distance with a concerned/confused/constipated look on her face. I honestly hope she wins an Oscar for it. In fact, you could cut together a 10-minute montage of nothing but the girl looking off-camera at something with a blank look on her face. That's her entire role. Amazing performance, really.
Okay, I exaggerated. She's also obsessed with watching a rerun of an old TV show. The world is falling apart around her, and her main objective is to watch reruns. Nice character development.
The black daughter is a snotty, self-righteous, ***** for no apparent reason. What's her problem? Later she accuses Julia of being an angry *****, but they both are. And with a pussy like Ethan Hawke for a husband, well, I guess she is used to wearing the pants in that household.
Why is the son afflicted with serious radiation poisoning (if that's what it is??), but everyone else is 100% normal? The boy went nowhere that other people didn't also go. So why is he the only one with teeth already falling out? Why not his hair too?
Why do they think Kevin Bacon has a horde of (unnamed) "medicine" that will help the boy? Especially since they don't even know what affliction he has. This is just a made-up bullshit storyline to have a porch-front confrontation over nothing at all. The showdown with Bacon is just stupid and unrealistic.
In hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, mass shooting events. terrorism events, etc. Aemricans have shown that come together and help each other. We see it over and over again. I find the implication that society would breakdown so quickly and neighbors not helping each other to be totally insulting.
Speaking of Kevin Bacon, why does he catch the eye of Julia Roberts in the parking lot at a grocery store just because he's loading a few cases of water into his truck? Why is that seen as strange? Why would you look at him and stare as if he had his pants around his ankles? Not only is he parked quite a distance away, but there’s also a hundred reasons people buy cases of bottled water. Maybe he's a little league coach.
Besides, if he is the "prepper" that we are supposed to believe he is, there's no way he'd be buying a few dozen single-serve bottles of water at the last minute. Dumb.
Ethan Hawke's character is such a pussy. How is it that a grown man can manage to get himself lost on a two-lane country road with seemingly no intersections? He works himself into a panic over nothing at all. How is the road any different than any other day? Why is he suddenly lost and freaking out? There's only one road!! Turnaround and go back the way you came from if you are that much of a child.
So, while out on the road he comes across a middle-age hysterical Spanish speaking woman on the side of the road in the middle nowhere. Let's just ignore how a woman suddenly appears out of nowhere on a country road and starts banging on the window. Let's assume maybe she was taking a nap in the ditch. Of course, since he doesn’t understand Spanish, and has no idea what she is trying to communicate, he basically tells her to **** off and he drives away while she pleads for help clinging to the car and banging on the window. Nice guy. Would you just drive off and leave her there? No, you wouldn't ,and neither would 99% of all humans in the same circumstances. Just stupid. The filmmakers wanted the shock value of the woman coming out of nowhere, and then didn't know what to do with her after that. So, just drive off! She doesn't speak English, so therefore doesn't matter at all.
And then thousands of flyers are dropped right on Hawke's car. And this litter frightens him very much -- as we can see by the exaggerated emotions on his face. Oh no, sheets of paper!!! But why would anyone want to dump all the flyers right on top of a single person? What is the point?
Why are there so many brand-new Teslas -- all the same exact model and color -- on Long Island? Not possible. No other colors of Teslas are sold? No other models? And they are somehow being commanded to drive down the road and rear-end the next one in line? Why only new Teslas, why aren't used Teslas also affected? What is the point of the Tesla scene other than to provide an interesting visual? It's just not credible. I gotta say the close-up on the window sticker about "self-driving" cars really helped sell it. Nice touch.
When they first encounter the Teslas they are in the country with nothing on the horizon except for a body of water and small trees. As they drive away from the traffic jam the aerial shot reveals they are about 5 miles from Manhattan and its many bridges. So where are all the other people on Long Island? We only see Kevin Bacon and a crazy Spanish-speaking woman. Nobody else. Why aren't there literally hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming out of the city -- not to mention the over 7 million inhabitants who live on Long Island already. What happened to them all? Conveniently ignored.
So, a guy drives onto his neighbor’s driveway and parks. He is there for about a minute using his phone before he realizes the house and yard have been hit by a tornado or something. How is it that he could pull all the way onto a circular driveway and yet wouldn’t have seen all that damage and debris from the moment he pulled in?
Then he gets out and walks through the house and into the backyard and beach. The first thing that catches his eye is the face of a watch neatly buried in the sand. Nothing else showing except the face. He goes to pick it up and - surprise surprise - there is a hand connected to it. But that’s not all, there's also an arm. And then a whole body of a pilot. Only now does the man look around and see 10,000+ pieces of aircraft debris just a few feet away. Stuff everywhere as far as the eye can see. But what caught his eye? The face of a watch buried in the sand. No smell of jet fuel?
Also, notice that by the end of the scene the pilot isn't even buried anymore. His full body is just laying on the hard packed beach. Where did all the sand go that was burying him 5 seconds earlier?
Wait a second, oh no!!! There's another plane going to crash at the exact same point on earth. No problem, he can out-run it and go into the neighbor's house where he closes the door in the nick of time. Whew, that was close! Fortunately, all the windows get blown out with the force of a nuclear bomb, but the wall stands firm. Fantastic. I want to hire that contractor.
The dancing scene in the basement was just silly and embarrassing. "Hey, the world is being destroyed, but you've got some real toe-tappers here. Let's dance!" And now we know for sure that Julia Robert's dancing moves are almost as good as her acting skills. I haven't seen such great dancing since we saw Elaine Benes at the Christmas party on Seinfeld.
"Hey, even though the world is ending, after we dance in the basement, let's hang out by the pool and sip a cool drink. The apocalypse can wait!! We are on vacation. Let's swim and sunbathe. I hear that radiation gives you a nice tan."
Common sense says that a super-tanker would strike sea bottom and come to a halt hundreds of yards off the beach on Long Island. No way could it plow itself that deep ashore. Notice that in one shot, forward motion has nearly stopped, but in the next shot it is chugging along quite nicely again and throwing more sand. Dumb.
Why is the ship coming ashore in the first place? Where is the crew? Why wouldn't they disengage auto-pilot and stop the ship or change course. This was just a dumb plot device to add drama and some special effects. I also love it how everyone just calmly goes home after a giant super tanker nearly runs them over.
And as soon as they leave the beach, Julia says "let's go to Starbucks". And then we see a close-up of a Starbucks cup. End of storyline. Clearly just a blatant product placement that serves no purpose in the story.
Funny how nobody ever suggests stockpiling food, water, or any other provisions. I guess maybe Ethan Hawke is scared he'll get lost driving to the Piggly Wiggly, or that Kevin Bacon already horded all the good stuff. But there must be a couple of packets of Ramen still on the shelves, right?
Finally, I found the upside-down compositions and twirling technocrane shots to be really off-putting. They totally took me out of the story and only emphasized how little was actually going on in the movie. If you took away the music and the crazy camera moves, there's nothing here but a made-for-TV movie with cheesy effects, red herrings, and big-name stars looking to cash in.
If you want to see a great apocalyptic movie, go watch The Road with Viggo Mortenson. Or better yet, read The Stand by Stephen King.
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