I wasn’t planning on watching a second movie this week that was about post-apocalyptic humanity living in disparate colonies, preying on each other with a world that didn’t quite make sense but was still very evocative, but here we are.
I liked this one a lot better than Mortal Engines, although it certainly isn’t perfect. This is one of those end of the world scenarios that I think of sometimes. How does civilization grow back without land to plant soil in?
I’m not sure that I resonate with the land of promise angle that the plot was doing. But that sounds like jumping into my 10 point review, so let’s do that.
- Did I like it? Yeah, it was alright. Nothing amazing, but it was worth having on.
- Did I like the main character? Nah. He’s that sort of edgy 90s type, who wants to go it alone and has to learn the true meaning of friendship the hard way. I didn’t really bond with that as a character to watch. I’m too much in favor of cooperative games.
- Did I like the Villain? Yeah, the Deacon was a fun character. Walked the line between action movie villain and cartoonishly evil with a lot of bon mots. Not good enough to carry the whole move (like Jim Carrey’s Eggman), but still, a lot of fun.
- Did I like the side characters? Yeah. Not the ones I was supposed to care about, but they had a lot of kooky types who were very enjoyable. They also caught me off guard with the ol’ “Pretend to kill off the kooky character and then they can be back for the surprise rescue at the end of act 4.” Just like in Titan AE. (Actually, this movie has a few parallels to Titan AE.)
- Did I like the plot? Marking this as a no. I prefer to jump in to the sci-fi world with both feet, and the idea of a holy land where we get to stop living the premise bothers me.
- Did I like the resolution? Separate from my enjoyment of the plot, yeah it was alright. The guy learned how to have friends, there was a great raid on a barnacle clad oil tanker, and the final rescue had everything I was looking for in it. So yeah, I’ll toss it a point.
- Did I like the craft? Yeah, I did. It felt like Costner was super experienced with his boat. Everything was super believable, probably because a lot of it was done practically. All the things that stood out were obviously for the benefit of film and not incongruous. (Well, people were more wasteful than I would have thought. but it was fine.)
- Was I immersed? Always a tough category, but I’ll toss it the point.
- Did I have the proper emotional response? No, not really. I didn’t care about the characters, and a lot of their plight could have been fixed by not being assholes to each other.
- Would I watch it again? Probably not.
That gives it a 6 out of 10. Good, but not amazing.
Here’s my big complaint about the bad guys of the film, and really, it ties into yesterday’s film as well. If you want me to believe that the society has been functioning like this for a while, it needs to be sustainable. An ageing oil tanker is not going to last forever, and it strains the premise that the smokers could be doing what they’re doing for this long.
I like to play survival crafting openworld games. There’s one called the Raft that I imagine is based on Waterworld. (I’m clicking over to purchase it now…) The premise of this game is that you have a raft, and as you gradually collect flotsam, you expand your operation, solving your basic needs and figuring out how to improve your situation.
But it has a problem as a game, which actually says something about real life. There’s no problem that games like this have that can’t be solved with time and resources. Hungry? Then you need a bigger farm. Thirsty? More water collectors. Need resources? Wait long enough. It’s hard to really put things like this into practice in real life, and there always seems to be things put in the way, but when I look at apocalyptic worlds like Waterworld, I think that it’s the sort of work that people would gravitate toward.
Really, one of the big questions that the movie asks is “How do you trust the people you come across?” If the people could trust each other, they could trade in earnest, and they could prosper together. But all throughout the movie, people expected betrayal and they were right for the most part. But a lot of that betrayal was because of their paranoia making their social interactions dodgy. So, it doesn’t feel like a great way of doing business.
I probably wouldn’t last long in this sort of world, for a few reasons. I tend to trust the people that I deal with. Seems like a good way to get stabbed. I always sort of imagine myself as some sort of innkeeper, a teller of stories, a trader, and generally a helpful footnote in some other hero’s journey.
How would I run this in an RPG? I’ve sort of tried, running naval games before. The keys for this one would be that I would have to have a good system for letting people cobble together boats and craft. Good vehicle rules, good diving rules would all be crucial.
This world had a monster, but it was sort of superfluous. They could have just used a shark.
After all the reflections, I think Roger Ebert gave a perfec summary of the film when he said: “It could have been more, it could have been better, and it could have made me care about the characters. It’s one of those marginal pictures you’re not unhappy to have seen, but can’t quite recommend.”
If you think that sounds like a movie you’d like, then it might be something you’d enjoy. And that’s all I can say about it.