Better than I expected, but still mildly disappointing.
The approach to the disaster is interesting. There are a lot of little bits that we see and hear, but we never understand exactly what has happened, or what has been affected. This is a good approach to take, since it’s easier to poke holes in scenarios that you know too much about.
What makes this movie a mixed bag is the personal relationships. The movie is split between the apocalyptic storyline, and the personal story lines. The interpersonal drama aspects of the story are, sadly, mostly annoying. I never felt invested in any of them. And I think I have a good reason for this.
In these kinds of situations - high stress survival - most people are willing to put their personal conflicts aside. They still argue about how to proceed, what the best course of action is, but petty dramatics about who slept with whom back ten years ago seem trivial.
The result of this kind of dramatics is that I wind up thinking that everyone is an idiot, even if they aren’t.
There is one strong conflict in the movie, and that’s the two military men taking charge of things. This was a legitimately tense scenario, and I’m glad that it came to a head the way it did. The resolution was a little too neat, and it didn’t seem entirely believable. (Personally, I have a hard time believing that the speech she gives would persuade any others to stand down.)
One smaller gripe that I have is the daughter. She’s a triviality, she exists to be annoying, and she gives some motivation for a few characters at the end. But what bothers me is that it seems incredibly irresponsible for a pair of people to raise their child out in the woods without other kids her own age.
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