Why Did I Watch That? - The Last Survivors
I watched a bad movie today. It is sort of a guilty pleasure of mine. Watching bad movies that is. I revel in the terrible plots, paper-thin characters, cheesy effects, and wooden acting. It fuels me. I love them in a way that I can’t quite describe, or feel about bad games or music. To me, bad films deserve to be recognized, talked about, and maybe occasionally ridiculed. This one is no exception.
Sometimes movies are forgettable, mediocre even, and that is one of the worst things that I can say about a movie. When it fails to excel at anything or stand out in any way. The Last Survivors is such a movie, another in a long line of post-apocalyptic “action” films that have nothing to do or say to stand out. A group of settlers is trapped in a contemporary dust bowl, trying to survive against the land grabbing rich, and the overall lack of water.
Our hero is a plucky teen girl who I guess is supposed to be good at fighting people even though she is both severely malnourished and dehydrated. She has a sick brother, and she’s nice, which is basically her standout feature in this dog eat dog world, but when she is pushed to it, she can somehow easily kill heavily armed, well fed mercenaries (because the plot demands it).
It isn’t a subtle movie, far from it. The poor and downtrodden are pushed out and killed by the rich because they have some sort of “right” to the land. The villain carries around a bible and just executes people, even when it’s completely impractical. The entire premise is a poor excuse for class warfare, and for the main character to get her hands on a katana, the only true kind of movie sword.
The second that the film starts, you can already tell how it is going to end, and there are no surprises along the way. It’s mindless and predictable, with plot points included more to check off boxes than actually to advance the story. It follows the formula too closely, trapping itself in a rut without even trying to escape.
Nothing is astoundingly bad. Nothing I can take joy in laughing at. The acting isn’t good, but it isn’t terrible. The actors themselves are as forgettable as their characters are. The story is boring and predictable, and the writing just coasts along without any definable high or low points (except the part where she has a fucking katana). I would have liked this movie more if it was worse, because then there would have been something to remember about it.
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Tom has been writing about media since he was a senior in high school. He likes long walks on the beach, dark liquor, and when characters reload guns in action movies.
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