I’m struggling with what to think about this movie. It held my attention. There were a few decent ideas. It’s hard to knock apocalyptic scenarios. But this one wound up making me feel a little disappointed. They did a good job with the setting. There are lots of deserted areas, lots of fires. Lots of general damage and mayhem. I particularly liked a long shot of a suburban street where a hanged man is visible dangling from a streetlight.
But where the movie fails is in making an emotional or philosophical point about the end of the world. It’s hard to avoid comparing this to Last Night, which made a much more interesting point by showing a variety of reactions, including plenty of people who accepted the end of the world in a quiet resignation. People who didn’t stop working. With this one, most of the people fit into two camps - people who want to destroy and commit all the crimes they wanted to, and people who choose to die before being killed. Then there’s everyone at a huge party.
I’m not sure what I wanted, but this comes across as a louder, bigger version of Last Night, but also, much more shallow.
One of the primary differences between them is that this is a violent end to mankind. A meteorite has hit, and a wave of destruction is taking about twelve hours to make it around to Australia. Last Night never explains anything about the end, but it does have a firm, specific end point. We don’t know if it’s violent or just a blinking out, or what.
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