20 Years After (2008)

Too much of everything

Such a frustrating disappointment

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The movie has had huge potential, but fails to deliver due to it's limited format and (probably) budget constraints.In the beginning, hints are being dropped that peoples "balls were rotting off", adding gravity to the pregnancy, the whole movie revolves around. Unfortunately, there should have been more emphasis on communicating that vital plot detail for the movie to make sense.I liked the characters a lot, and I think - aside from the wonky routine the twins show in the end - the overall acting is good. There just wasn't more in the script.Aside from the badly communicated plot, the movie suffers from a huge pacing problem. It just crawls along, doesn't build much tension, and then all of a sudden tries to climax with 15 minutes of run-time left.This could - of course - be something that probably works great on stage, but translates quite poorly onto film. I'm also curious if much of the movie's problems couldn't be solved by a different cut, but we might never find out.Anyway - if you happen to like post-apocalypse as a genre, and feel the need to have seen everything on the subject, this is - by far - not the worst movie you'll come across.

This is one of the worst movies I've ever watched. I threw the DVD into the bushes outside my hotel room window after watching it so that I never have to be reminded of how I wasted however many minutes it was of my life.To be fair the acting was decent, it's just that the plot was rubbish, the script was diabolical, and the cinematography was average.Whilst I have an idea what the film was about. It made no sense. It was a series of scenes cobbled together. Nothing was explained. Things were alluded to, but who people were, what they were doing, why they were doing them was left open. I appreciate that sometimes, these can be left to the imagination of the viewer, but this film took the mickey in that respect.

Okay, firstly most of the reviews on here are really REALLY terrible, and I agree this movie was okay at best.I don't care about budgets and such, so the fact that the cinematography had a kind of unfinished feel to it didn't bother me, however I know it bothers some.Next, and most detrimentally, there is very little forward movement. The plot is severely lacking, in the special features they mention that this was a stage performance before a film and I think the cutting floor scooped up a lot of explanations that could have really helped the audience to understand.Now that being said this movie had some things that even most blockbuster films don't. One: SOME REALLY GOOD ACTORS. The actors are not wooden and don't pander to the camera (at least not most of them). The character Sara is specifically very convincing and easy to empathize with. Two: ORIGINALITY. This movie was not a typically post-apocalyptic mess. No radiation freaks, no scantily clad bikini babes, no dune-buggy rally... Finally: many of the visuals were stunning. (I'm thinking specifically about the blue bottle tree).The existential feel of the movie is kind of like Darjeeling Limited, and really I give this movie a six not a seven, but I'd like to see another star on it's rating.

We sat through the whole thing since it had a deceptively provocative title (a la 28 days later, etc.) Post-apocalyptic films are notoriously B quality so I was prepared for that because I love this genre anyway. Or so I thought. This plot offered nothing new, but instead ripped off elements of other PA films like the Stand (evil leader calls the lost to his side in an apocalyptic end-game, black spiritual leader for the good people) and Magic(Anthony Hopkins and his creepy ventriloquist dummy), and why not good old punk haircuts for the "crazies" to make it REALLY post-apocalyptic? They even threw in a Harper Lee/Faulknerian idiot man-child or two. For example, the inexplicable use of 2 (mentally retarded?) twins as minions of an evil 50 year old disappointed bride character were nearly as confusing as a "Trashcan Man/Lenny" thug covered with purple birthmarks all over his body. The roles the African-American actors were relegated to was less than dignified. An old black professor turned in a toothy, Ben Vereen/Mr. Bojangles performance reminiscent of Hattie McDaniels or Jack Benny's Rochester such as early Hollywood allowed of black performers. Not to mention, one of the twins mimed an absolutely ridiculous Carl Spackler lip grimace throughout the whole movie. The South sure hasn't changed much has it? The most confusing element of the whole film is the ventriloquist dummies that just seem to have absolutely no purpose whatsoever to the plot other than to utilize the fact that those things give everybody the damned creeps, however even this cliché is not developed logically.The only reason I even spent time on this review is to recoup the wasted time and money spent on this clunker by exacting revenge...As the end credits rolled on this film, my 11 year old son completely unprovoked said, "I spent so much time on this thing just now. I can't believe someone spent time and money making this. I would rather have smelled shoes..."Out of the mouths of babes. I think that says it all...