Saturday, June 26, 2010

You're looking for answers but your pride refuses to seek them. I suggest starting here

Hello I am the movie encyclopedia and if no one else will see it, I will.

Well this was a misstep...If you have been reading along the past week you will know that Uwe Boll has had a pretty good career in the last two years. He churned out 3 pretty good films all with good acting, good plots and a good message. For some reason though his latest film The Final Storm is not on par with his latest films. Only Nick would get this but he's like the latter weeks of Tim Urban on American Idol: he does really well for three weeks and then disappoints (only to go home the next day). Oh well...here's what happens.
The world is now a sucky place. The economy is a lot worse than it is now with more and more people losing their jobs and losing all their money. People have now become more desperate and have started fighting and rioting in the streets. It's a much more violent world and it doesn't help that the climate has gone to hell either. Lately there have been some storms, each getting progressively worse. One day however, two farmers Tom and Gillian, whilst dealing with another massive storm, get an unwelcome visitor named Silas. He seems kinda shady but he's cold and it's pouring out so they bring him in. They all go to sleep shortly afterwards.

Things turn weird however when they wake up the next morning and Tom, Gillian and Silas are apparently the only things left on the Earth. This is weird and an unexplainable phenomenon but instead of exploring that and the possible religious symbolism (flood anyone?) they decide to turn it into a horror film. I mean the first half is really strong but then it turns into Last House on the Left...I don't get it.

I mean his last three films were heavily improved or had really good writing all by Uwe Boll. But this time they bring in Tim McGregor. Tim is a competent writer and the first half of the film is actually really good. Some of my fellow reviewers say it starts off slow but I think it has a pretty good pace considering the subject matter. It's supposed to be slow and methodical. Tim does a good job creating this world and this environment and these characters but it's when he realizes that he hit the money shot too early (the Final Storm which wiped out humanity and all living things) he decides to bail on any semblance of a plot that he had created. Instead of finding out if this was biblical or trying to look for survivors or showing their life as the last people on Earth it turns really dark. I mean they throw in biblical allegories and a few mentionings of scripture here or there but it mostly focuses on Silas for the latter half of the film. Why Silas?

I won't ruin the plot but let's just say Silas looks shady because he is shady. And they make sure to explain why for most of the latter half of the film. And by the end only his character arc was resolved. What about the giant elephant in the room? No? Is there going to be a sequel? I dunno. Someone just please explain to me why Silas's character was more important than the apocalypse. I mean I understand WHY (they explain it well enough) but WHY is HE MORE IMPORTANT THAN GOD SMITING EVERYTHING?

I dunno. It's the writing that ruins it. Uwe does great behind the camera, the effects look good and all the actors are really good. It's a shame. I hate to say this but if Uwe would have just wrote it than it might have been a really good film. As it is it's a film with a lot of promise that fails in terms of plot.

MY VERDICT: AVOID IT

1 comment:

  1. I hate it when nobody even tries to conceal the villain. I always bring this argument back to Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones, forgive me, I mean, there's no subtlety in it.

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