First of all: This movie has a lot going for it. Powerful imagery, good acting, generally good pacing, as has undoubtedly been discussed before. However, after watching it I was mainly annoyed by the gigantic plot-holes and strange idiosyncracies the movie contains. What happened to cell phones, sms, or even the internet? Why antagonize the viewer with the overly stupid behaviour exhibited by the main protagonists when the disease starts looming in on their relationship? And the final annoyance to tip the scales was the **SPOILER** superbly corny reunion scene, using so many over-used "near-miss" techniques, compounded by the characters' inability to hear, all of which could have been avoided by a single sms. These people were using cellphones before. ***/SPOILER***
So in the end the weird mix of realism on the one hand and a strangely unrealistic string of events didn't leave me convinced. The movie felt like the script writer had a few distinct scenes in mind which were to happen at various points in the script, and then somehow forced everything to fit together. This has NEVER worked well. A good scene that is made to happen by contriving some obscure constellation of events ends up just as contrived as the rest of the construction.
***SPOILER*** And finally the movie leaves you with a profound feeling of "So what?". It's really an apocalypse film that focuses on dealing with the inevitable consequences, but the final outcome really IS the end of the world, in spite of the final words of the narrator. It would have been more powerful if the movie had ended with a less catastrophic final phase for the disease. As is, you are now left to imagine how everyone stumbles around until they inevitably starve. ***/SPOILER***
The only way this movie sort of works is as a strange moral piece on taking things for granted and coping with the loss of them.
So in the end the weird mix of realism on the one hand and a strangely unrealistic string of events didn't leave me convinced. The movie felt like the script writer had a few distinct scenes in mind which were to happen at various points in the script, and then somehow forced everything to fit together. This has NEVER worked well. A good scene that is made to happen by contriving some obscure constellation of events ends up just as contrived as the rest of the construction.
***SPOILER*** And finally the movie leaves you with a profound feeling of "So what?". It's really an apocalypse film that focuses on dealing with the inevitable consequences, but the final outcome really IS the end of the world, in spite of the final words of the narrator. It would have been more powerful if the movie had ended with a less catastrophic final phase for the disease. As is, you are now left to imagine how everyone stumbles around until they inevitably starve. ***/SPOILER***
The only way this movie sort of works is as a strange moral piece on taking things for granted and coping with the loss of them.