As I was taking holiday with my wife the past few days, I was not able to keep up with the latest movies playing in Indonesian theaters since last Wednesday. When we finally returned home, there was little time to see the movies and my wife was not feeling enthusiastic either. So I decided to see this one without my wife's company. What was the movie all about? Let us find out.
Brief Story Line
Story was set after the war between humans and robots that destroyed the world. The remaining humans were trying their best to survive in the post-apocalyptic world which was mostly desert. Some of the more savages people who called themselves Raiders were led by a Warlord (James Franco - Why Him?, The Disaster Artist etc) and running around in their motorcycles looking for people they can rob & kill (and women to rape). These raiders managed to find a female android that was revived by Warlord. He gave her the name Ash (Suki Waterhouse - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Assassination Nation etc) and made her his own personal slave, despite Ash' unique perspective of her "life".
Meanwhile a group of peaceful survivors were led by Queen (Lucy Liu - Kungfu Panda trilogy, Elementary TV series etc) who was very ill. Her son Prince (Jeffrey Wahlberg) wanted to find the cure for her illness and embarked on a journey towards the Paradise Beach. During this journey, he would cross path with Warlord and Ash, and had to endure painful process that involved the Pimp (Snoop Dogg - Starsky & Hutch, Turbo etc) and the Drug Lord (Milla Jovovich - Resident Evil: The Final Chapter and its prequels, The Fifth Element etc).
So could Prince find what he was looking for? And what would become of Ash? Find them all in this action movie.
End of Brief Story Line
I actually read some comments & also noticed from various websites how low the critics & audience view of this movie. So when I saw this one, I have very little expectation of it. The first few minutes seemed to be the standard narrative of how the world became as it was. Then it became very wild with the showing of how ruthless Warlord and his group. The plot then became quite easy to guess of how it would proceed. As a post apocalyptic type of movie, this one has the same formula where the villains were savages and the society became very inhuman. There was also another plot of the struggle in Ash' mind as an android who seemed to be having feelings. It provided nothing new to this kind of genre.
One of the things that I found not enjoyable in the movie were the characterization of Drug Lord by Milla Jovovich which I think was very poorly done (she really did not look suitable playing this role). James Franco did provide glimpses of disturbing behaviors as Warlord, while Suki Waterhouse seemed to be put in a role as objectified character. The rest of the cast which included people like Margareta Levieva, Carmen Argenziano, Method Man, Rumer Willis and few others did not provide too much memorable moments. The main role of Prince was played by rather newcomer Jeffrey Wahlberg (the nephew of Mark & Donnie Wahlberg) with little acting experience and even had to have his own personal acting coach as seen in the end credit scene. Btw, there was a mid end-credit scene that provided some kind of closure for some of the characters.
I also sense that the story seemed to be emphasizing on satisfying male's perspectives (the scenes in the Sex Town involving sex slaves, or the love scene between two females) which I think would not bode well with the more conservative audience. So definitely a movie suitable for adults. There was also a feeling that the movie seemed to be copying a lot from Mad Max movies (similar post-apocalyptic situation with savages running around in a very dry desert-like lands). Problem is, the action sequence were not too many and it did not really satisfy me like those movies. Even the big names that I mentioned above were not able to make the movie more interesting as their characters were simply not intriguing enough.
Basically I can understand why critics and audiences did not enjoy the film. I myself could say that I did not really find the movie to be fun or cool or satisfying. And I was really glad that I did not convince my wife to accompany me see this movie, otherwise she would be furious.
So if you had other options that you can see in the cinema, I would recommend you to see those rather than this. If you still want to see it, it would be better to watch it through online streaming or wait till it played on TV.
Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
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