Posted by This starts out with a parent meet and greet with a man, Will, who wants to ask for the daughter’s hand in marriage. Will doesn’t go over well with the parents and is asked to leave the house before the dinner was even over. The father, Tom, is especially irritated by him and there’s no chance he’s going to give his blessings to their marriage, so Will doesn’t even bring it up. The weird part is the daughter wasn’t there, she’s across the country and I didn’t catch why the boyfriend was out there to begin with if there was an answer given. It doesn’t really matter though, very shortly after the disastrous dinner something strange goes down. Will was on the phone with the daughter when “something happens” there was a loud rumbling noise, the daughter says “something’s wrong” and then the phone cuts out. All the characters know is that there was “an event” that happened “out west”, it’s all pretty vague and you only know as much as the characters know, which isn’t much. The power has been shut off, all airports have closed, phone lines have gone down, and F-22’s are doing flybys in major cities.
The dad and Will set out to go find the daughter who is all the way across the country in Seattle. The father is a super serious guy, packs a gun and knows how to use it. You don’t know what he did for a living, but this isn’t a guy to be trifled with. Their car breaks down and they manage to find a mechanic – a foul-mouthed woman who knows what she’s about. I liked her character, but I’m not sure about how believable it was in how she got picked up for the ride. These two guys show up in a shot up cop car and just ask her to drive across the country with them to help fix the car if it’s needed. Who in their right mind would do that? But, it’s how they end up with a third member for their journey.
Outside of phones not working anymore other weird shit is going on – compasses no longer work, they just spin endlessly, birds are flying in strange formations, and storms unlike any ever seen are springing up everywhere.
I really didn’t how many bad guys suddenly show up the same day the electricity goes out. I just don’t think there would be roaming packs of murderers who show up at the most convenient of times, it’s like the day the lights go out everyone switches from normal human beings into cutthroat crazy people. It’s also a predictable guarantee that if the main characters trust a random character they just met, he’s going to be betrayed. You’d think he’d learn but he doesn’t.
The acting was all over the place, the father was a decent actor but given crappy lines. The guy playing Will wasn’t a good actor and he also wasn’t given great lines – so that was a big downside to this movie. Outside of the father and the woman mechanic they pick up, most of the actors weren’t that great.
The ending was a pretty big let down, there was a half assed crack theory as to what was causing all the problems, but no real reason was given. It just made the whole thing even more strange.
I didn’t like this one much, the explanations and execution were pretty flimsy all the way around with a lot of open-ended things and unanswered questions that weren’t thought-provoking and meaningful, but rather sloppy and disjointed. I don’t usually look at IMDB until after I’m done watching to snag their score for the end of the review. But, maybe I should start glancing at it before I sit down for a 1hr 45min suck fest 😀
My rating: 4/10