Ok, first, to set the mood in regards to expectations, let me throw the trailer up here:

A couple things to note that are going to give you an idea of how this movie is going to shake out a) the studio that brought this to the screen is an outfit that specializes in religious-themed offerings, and b) Neal McDonough, the only ‘big name’ in this movie, is a very devout Catholic…devout enough to the point that he doesn’t do sex scenes or kiss people in movies. So, with those two bits of data, lets get into it.

The premise is absolutely nothing you haven’t seen in a hundred movies in this genre. The very short version is that Bad Event happens but theres a rich guy who has been preparing for it and needs a buncha ex-operators to keep the place safe from the unprepared and desperate survivors. Drama ensues.

Although the classic genre bad guys – the cannibal bikers – are absent, we do have a few tropes that are standard for the genre:

• The security guy who wants to take it all over for himself
• The government bureaucrat who wants to seize everything for redistribution
• The we-have-to-help-everyone character oblivious to the risks
• The person who thinks everything will be fine..the government will help us
• The family that gets split up and has no idea where the others are

Into this mix, there’s a couple of subplots that are, presumably, addressed in subsequent episodes (yup, this thing apparently is available as a series)…there’s the two teenagers from different backgrounds who have a chaste budding romance, a kid who may or may not be prescient, other ‘survivalists’ with a camp nearby, and a couple other little subplots that aren’t explored at this point in the movie/series.

I starts out fairly strong. Typical ‘evacuate the city’ scene with traffic, cars out of gas, fist fights at supermarkets, casual violence, etc. Once people arrive at the fortified hillside compound we start in with the scenes that, again, we’ve seen in every movie in this genre: people demanding to be let in, rationing, people in charge butting heads, et, etc.

And, of course, there’s the religious messaging. Now, in some ways it makes sense – its the end of the world, some people are going to be more devout than others and it’s not unreasonable to think that theyre going to say that everyone needs to turn to faith to see them through things. Thats not unrealistic. However the last ten minutes of the movie is where it really drives it home. I’m gonna be a nice guy and give you a spoiler cut. Eject now if you don’t want spoilage.

Continue reading →

It occurs to me that this year is the 25th anniversary of Kevin Costner’s second-worst movie – The Postman. (His first worst was, of course, the other post-apocalyptic movie Waterworld which was basically Mad Max with jetskis. Although Jeanne Tripplehorn makes the experience worth it.)

The short version is that after the apocalypse, a traveling actor masquerades as a postman from a distant restored federal government to garner himself protection and sustenance. However, he inadvertently inspires a movement to overthrow a warlord and actually restore the government.

The book, by David Brin, was a good bit darker with quite a few changes. Most notably, the book portrays civilization being held back from recovery by fanatical survivalists who adopt a heavily Darwinian (or Malthusian, I suppose) attitude. Survivalists are portrayed as madmen who are glad society has collapsed, embrace the every-man-for-himself world, and will fight to prevent the establishment of any type of restorative process. Also, the nature of and role of men and women is prominent in the book, as one character recruits her own army of women to subvert and manipulate the men, through feminine means, towards the shared goal of her and the postman.

The book also featured more of the day-to-day scrounging and hard-scrabble living that the postman has to go through before he stumbles onto his deceptive new career. There’s a scene in the book where he discovers a cache of high-value items (tooth powder, antibiotics, an AR7, etc.) and is forced to abandon it as bad guys approach. The book describes his anguish as he sees those items get taken by the bad guys when they would have made his life so much better. Good stuff. There are smaller, similar scenes throughout the story that remind you that this is a world where something as simple as a tooth infection can and will kill you.

The book is much less happy ending than the movie but both are still, in my opinion enjoyable. The movie is rather long at almost three hours, but Im cool with that since I’m a sucker for this genre of movie. There are humourous touches in the movie that are absent from the book, and, bizarrely, now-dead rocker Tom Petty appears as himself playing the mayor of a small town of survivors.

The movie still has the theme of townies-vs-warlords that was in the book but the strident and vehement attitude about evil ‘survivalists’ is absent in the movie. The bad guys are not really referred to as ‘survivalists’ but rather as just a rather large organized group of thugs, in the book they are quite clearly called ‘survivalists’ and are portrayed as ear-cutting killing-machines who are one-man armies.

Is it a good movie? No, not really? Is it a fun movie? Well, if your idea of fun is post-apocalyptic living, sure. Is it entertaining? Yes, if you enjoy this genre. I’d watch it if it came up for free on Amazon Prime or I saw it while flipping channels. Would I actually rent it? No. But I would buy the book. Not as great as Alas Babylon or Lucifers Hammer, but still an entertaining read with a little bit of food for thought here and there.

Oh, and according to the book, the events in The Postman take place in the near-future of…2013. I must have missed it.

Alright, I’ve seen just about every form of survivalist/postapocalypse movie known to man….and probably the most under-represented genre (probably for the best anyway) is survivalist romance. (You might think a post-apocalypse musical would be the most under-represented…you’d be…close.) And yet, I seem to have missed this:

I suppose the message given in the movie is that if you worry too much about the future you wind up missing out on the benefits of the present. At least, thats what the grasshopper would say. Nonetheless, I may have to go fire up the Netflix/Prime and see if I can snag this for some night when there’s nothing better to watch. John Lithgow, I think, is a good talent and I’d be interested to see how if he brings something to the role that couldn’t be accomplished by any other actor his age.

Then again, given Hollywood’s attitude, at the end ofthe movie the guy could have an epiphany, burn all his preps, and think he’d wasted all his time and money on foolishness. I’ll just have to watch and find out, I suppose.