If you were expecting some epic apocalyptica, then don’t bother with this snore fest. The trailer was false advertising. Way too much “drama” for my impatient Gen Y taste. It’s more about Viggo Mortensen’s character’s longing for his former life and wife who wandered off into the darkness to die alone because she couldn’t watch Sex in the City anymore.
The apocalyptic event is obviously not the focus of the film’s plot, and it shows. Boy does it show.
No animals survived.
BULLSHIT.
Yet another example of a self-centred species defining itself as not being one of those smelly, dirty animals. A species which is so unique and special that it exists completely outside of nature itself. When a beaver builds a dam to live in, this is nature. Yet when you move into a nice 20 storey condo by the beach with its own mini mall, this is unnatural? When you build a tent out of sticks, is this nature? I say, if a species evolved a big enough brain to build shiny stick tents out of concrete, metal and glass, this is still 100% natural.
There are way tougher animals that would survive long after we’re gone. Humans are not special. Their brains make them weak. They are one of the only few species that makes itself entirely dependent on the infrastructure it creates. Sure, a bird needs to live in a nest, but it doesn’t build itself a bloody three story mansion.
Beyond that gaping hole, the removal of animals can only be an artificial plot construction to facilitate the inclusion of cannibalism — which is only added for shock value. Nowhere does the film mention the only real outcome — vegetarians will take over the world!
The more I examine the vague end-of-world scenario, the more it unravels. The son looks no less than 8 years old. Suppose all the animals did die in the event, including all the fish in all the seas, wouldn’t 8 years of total absence of life drastically upset the balance of gases in the atmosphere?
So there are plenty of dead-looking trees around, but there are still grasses so it’s just winter. The plants are still around, then. But how? Without animals, who’s been doing all that faecal seed-spreading and pollination? OK so there’s one beetle later in the movie, great. That’s one busy beetle.
And what’s with this kid? His character is constructed with some sort of innocence and kindness which is supposed to send a heart-warming message that he’s untouched by the disaster or whatever. But a kid who had grown up fighting for his life and running from cannibals would be the biggest hard-ass. He wouldn’t take shit from anyone. He wouldn’t be constantly asking “Are we still the good guys?” because he’d realise there are no good guys and bad guys. Just hungry guys and dead guys — a.k.a. dinner. Nom.
