The Road

To be honest, The Road rather disappointed me. It lacks spark, and the label "intimate" here only masks the directorial helplessness. Some films take place in much smaller spaces, like caves or coffins, and yet manage to keep the viewer in constant tension. The Road depicts a post-apocalyptic world where every day is a struggle for survival, but it fails to sell it properly. It has the energy of a person after a marathon. The post-apocalyptic genre often falls into stupid action B-movies like Mad Max. The Road had a unique opportunity to show the realistic demise of proud human civilization in all its hopelessness and horror. However, it lacks atmosphere and often even tension. The engagement of a world-class star like Charlize Theron seems utterly unnecessary for a few insignificant flashbacks; any unknown television actress could have easily handled it. The dialogues are too brief and clearly did not receive much attention. The Road shows a world after an unspecified disaster (most likely the fall of a larger celestial body), but this image has weaknesses. If it had crashed into the sea, it would have caused a gigantic tsunami that would have washed away hundreds of millions of people from coastal areas and plains, and extensive salinization would have led to local famines. It would have been a blow to human civilization, but certainly not a mortal one. If it had crashed on land, it would have thrown such a large amount of rock and dust into the atmosphere that it would have probably caused climate change for a few hundred years. It is said that civilization ends three days after supply collapses, but the image of aimlessly wandering individuals, couples, and small groups in a dead landscape would likely look completely different. From one day to another, the fine liberal civilization with culture, human rights, and consumer gluttony would come to an end. Relentless competition for dwindling supplies and resources would begin, but it would likely be organized and highly sophisticated. Rather than cannibalism, the use of weapons of mass destruction and large-scale wars waged this time without regard for public opinion and to the extreme would be the real threat. Unlike most movie makers, I don't think ammunition would be scarce. If humanity has an abundance of anything, it's weapons in general. This would be a large-scale operation. Today's states would quickly collapse, taking their helpless political representation with them, and those with firm determination would come to power. In the film, the question of whether certain people are good or not is asked several times. Similar terms would lose their meaning in a post-apocalyptic society (at least the meaning they have today). The task of the time would be to reduce the Earth's current population of 8 billion to a few million who are capable of sustaining themselves in the post-apocalyptic world. People who survived would face something worse than hunger and cold. They would lose compassion and humanity. Even if the Earth were hit by a planet that once wiped out the dinosaurs, nature and humans have an extraordinary ability to adapt. Considering the topic and knowing that Hillcoat did not want to make a cheap action flick, I give it a weak 3 stars. Overall impression: 50%. (03/08/2013) (less) (more)