Checked out the Netflix Original How It Ends. This is post-apocalyptic road trip if, by post apocalypse, we mean a handful of days after. And by apocalypse, we mean something vague. Something very vague. As if the film makers couldn’t decide so didn’t decide.
This isn’t a terrible movie but it shows its low-budget and its script problems easily. Something Happens on the west coast that knocks out power throughout the country. Theo James and Forrest Whitaker are in Chicago when it happens and decide to take a road trip to Seattle to rescue James’ fiance who is Whitaker’s daughter. A whole lot of driving through empty roads and occasional shootouts ensue.
The movie makes a pretense of explaining why all the roads are empty by saying the military blocked access to the interstate west of Chicago. This, however, is a terrible (and low budget) excuse for why they rarely run into anyone else. It’s as though the population had been wiped out but there was very little debris… or more time was supposed to have passed. On the plus side, no zombies, I suppose.
The movie does eventually roll into Seattle and we get an idea that something… vague… happened. There’s a lot of destruction, some talk of waves, random earthquakes, northern lights are in the sky, compasses don’t work… just a lot of hand waving about something the scriptwriters never really nailed down. It’s rather frustrating… though I suspect the writers said to themselves, “Well, it worked for The Road”… but that was a better movie and more time had passed.
Not a lot of happens in this movie but I can’t say I was bored. I was intrigued enough to keep watching but it slowly sank in that we were never really going to learn anything. Which means the movie had to stand on its character dynamics. The acting was fine but we never really learn a lot about the characters and the film doesn’t really have much to say. Oh well. At least it’s a Netflix movie.
Score: 72