Plot: After an apocalypse that destroys civilization and kills 99% of the people a man (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) travel The Road looking for food and warmth. Along they way they meet bandits, cannibals, scavenge for food and crawl in the mud.
Review:.The best part is the steady enduring will to find survive that the man and the boy have as they tread down The Road. The visualization of the story on big screen create a heavy emotional burden -- worse than I felt reading the book. The art direction is of good quality, but the dead trees and barren landscapes got me down.
Smit-McPhee is a good child actor. Mortensen's performance is "one-note," and I don't understand why anyone would consider him for an Oscar.
The key question is whether this dreariness is worth it because something makes The Road worthwhile. After the film, you can't help but think about what I should do in those circumstances. Would I be one of the "good guys carrying the fire," or one of the other guys? My wife likes the theological aspects like what would we think about God if the world were as bad as this? Of course this bleak world is a metaphor for our own world -- Do we all plod through a bleak existence with no hope? What keeps us going?
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron
Crew: directed by John Hillcoat; based on the book Cormac McCarthy
Rating: 2.5 flasks; plus 0.5 for its thoughtfulness minus 0.5 for its dreariness.
More: Most likely the darkest and dreariest movie I have seen in my life. If you can think of a darker one, leave me a comment.
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