How It Ends

In this implied 'beginning of the end' scenario, the question posed on the opening scene is what keeps you watching, hoping for an answer. I'm usually a fan of most things Netflix has created. This isn't one of them.

While the premise was intriguing, the dialogue of the script I thought was pretty weak, so the film never moved beyond the initial interest it created around the 'event'  on which the movie begins.

Being such a weakly-pennned film, I was suprised to see an actor of Forrest Whitaker's calibur in it at all, even though it was in a supporting role. Director David  M. Rosenthal got about all he could squeeze from this film.

The leading actors Theo James, Kat Graham, and Nancy Sorel, as well as Whitaker, all pulled their weight well enough, but they just didn't have much to work with in this script. 

The film opens with an 'event'. Will Younger (Theo James) is in Chicago talking with his soon-to-be bride -- who is home in Seatle. Suddenly there is a shutter; talking to her on Facetime he sees that she is clearly scared; no one knows what is happening. Then, the power across the entire country goes dark.

This sets the stage: Tom Sutherland (Forrest Whitaker) is a retired general, and father of Smantha (Kat  Graham) -- the pregnant girlfiriend of Will. He is preparing his go bag to set out by car across the country to find her. His only pending question, he tells Will, is "are you coming?"

Of course Tom and Will intensely dislike each other, and Tom is not aware as to all aspects of his daughter's intimacy with Will.  How esle would a cross-country road trip be suspenseful? And just to continue that bad writing, let's throw in a stray -- in the form of a girl who works in a nothing of a little town where they break down. She is abused by her father (maybe it's her father) -- so when Tom and Will suggest she should  come along with them to the west coast, because, she is a mechanic, she agrees. 

There are a few lines that are so awful or ciche that it will make you wanto to cringe;  they're so obvious and played-out. 

The storyline, where everyone they encounter on their 5 day trip wants to kill them, is also a bit absurd and rediculous. The country is without power for a few days and we're supposed to buy into a narrative that everyone has suddenly hunkered down into survival mode?

By the end,  not all out weary travelers make it, and we still don't ever get to know what the event was.

My suggestion is to skip this one.

2 Stars -- only because of some of the action scenes.