So people recommended The Road to me back when the book first came out (I didn’t read it because I didn’t want it influencing a Zombie Kisses plotline I was working on). Then they recommended the movie to me when it came out. But I’m generally not a fan of modern movies (I think the last time I rented a movie was in 2002 & I’m not on Netflix, which probably says something about me) so I didn’t bother checking it out.
For some reason Showtime was on for free this weekend & the only movie that I had any interest in was this one. Well, I’m glad I was multi-tasking for this movie because it was pretty hard to get through. Now I suppose most people would say it’s hard to get through because of the bleak content, but to me it was more the unbelievability of the child actor (or maybe that of the role). I haven’t seen too many child actors that I’ve been impressed by & something that stars a kid in a major dramatic role needs a kid who nails it. But I think part of the problem is that the way it’s presented that this kid has led his whole life after the apocalypse, yet he acts as if he was suddenly placed into it from today (or maybe more like a kid from the 1920s really as I don’t think there’s any illusion that most kids today aren’t worried about following a moral compass). Kids are resilient. If the apocalypse comes, they aren’t going to have the big problems adjusting that us stupid adults will. They’ll be the ones to pull the triggers without a question. I mean, maybe the story this is supposed to be telling is that the father is raising the boy to be a relic of the past in morality while the father’s own sense of right & wrong spirals out of control, but nothing happened to make me think this from seeing the movie; it’s just what I think would be a more interesting version of the story. But I suppose the more interesting story I’m talking about is the movie version of Road to Perdition (which also suffered from a non-stellar child actor).
But watching this & knowing how popular the book & movie are makes me wonder, has the end of the world jumped the shark? Does Two & A Half Men have episodes about life after the apocalypse now? & what does that say about me as someone who has a fascination with surviving the apocalypse?
Does this movie live up to the hype? Not for me. I’d rather watch Panic in the Year Zero again or maybe see a TV mini-series of Pat Frank’s Alas Babylon.
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