Survivor |
USA • 2014 • 93m •
  • Directed by: John Lyde. • Starring: Danielle Chuchran, Kevin Sorbo, Rocky Myers, Ruby Jones, Melanie Stone, Blake Webb, Abigail Mason, Andrew Dee Jones, Paul D. Hunt, James C. Morris, Braxton McAllister, Nicola Posener, Dave Bresnahan. • Music by: James Schafer.     During their search for a habitable planet the last living humans crash-land on a barren world, inhabited by bloodthirsty aliens and mysterious post-apocalyptic warriors.
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Review:
Since I am a science student, I will start with the rather unconvincing physics in this film- I know I am being pedantic and this is a sci-fi film, but at least try to make it somewhat convincing. First, the protagonist Kate explains how they 'got there'- the Earth was going out of orbit (how?), so scientists used particle colliders to steer the Earth. Wow! Particle colliders to steer the Earth? They really think bumping a few protons together is going to make it all better? Oh but it gets worse, the ocean then 'evaporates'- I appreciate their awareness of climate change, but there just isn't enough fossil fuel, uranium etc. on the planet to do that. Coming onto the plot slightly, they packed a few survivors onto a spaceship as the Earth's ocean was evaporating. Come on, seriously, what were they doing before that? Isn't it a bit too late when the ocean was disappearing? OK, so the Earth was turning into hell and they couldn't find another habitable planet, so they just wondered in space for 40 odd years. Eventually they'll run out of fuel, considering how big that ship is. But OK, let's assume they have fusion power and packed a lot of what's left of the Earth's water on-board, wouldn't 40 years of wondering around still be a problem? Modern sea-faring ships need to be constantly resupplied every few months at best, and repaired every few years or so. But 40 years! Where's the food, repair material etc. coming from? It's like they threw the laws of thermodynamics out of the windows of the ship (if there was one). Now I know this is too much physics, so I'll cover one brief point- when giant chunks were falling out of the sky when their shuttle disintegrates, when they hit the ground maybe a couple of small flames appeared. But in the real world, a chunk that big will destroy a whole city, so Kate wouldn't be dodging those debris- oh no, she'd be dead.
Now, the weak understanding of science on this film, which I only mentioned briefly in this review, is only a starter to why it's bad. Another reason is that the plot and characters don't even qualify the title of being 'one-dimensional' (let alone 3 dimensional). I put spoilers because the plot is very easy to describe- our omnipotent heroine somehow survives a crash landing, her friends are all kidnapped or killed. From then on it's just her running around killing things, climb a few mountains, then managed to mount a horse like a pro on her first ride, all without eating, drinking, sleeping and relieving! Plus she was chased by a few monsters, and was stalked by this bloke. Two plus sides are that most of the fights are well choreographed and the music seems appropriate, but everything was falling apart.
All the characters are introduced too abruptly as well. Every character just suddenly appear, not to mention the minimal amount of personal back stories to make any of them 3 dimensional- I can count the number of occasions where we can explore their personal history or personality with a single hand- once where Kate explains (briefly) how lucky she survives to the grand old age of 21, and how she loves training, another occasion where the captain talked about horses on Earth, plus one more instance. But most of the time, it feels like- who is this (wo)man? Why is this happening? This is not a mystery or crime drama, where there is eureka moment, the whole thing is too incoherent.
The film tried to mimic Planet of Apes' mystery about the truth of the 'alien' planet i.e. the protagonists are totally unaware that it is Earth in the future- and fails. The breadcrumbs were everywhere- horses, people with double barrel shotguns and skiing goggles, so it's very hard not to know that they are home.
Lastly, the ending is ridiculous. The chief whose name I cannot remember blows himself up with a dynamite for some reason unexplained- then the bloke-who-was-stalking-Kate gave a very concise inspirational speech to his tribe. Wow, how they suddenly turned from trying to kill him to believing and cheering for him, even after he killed a lot of this own tribe's men.
To sum up the whole film- the science is comical, the characters are somewhat stereotypical and not even one-dimensional. Forget about the plot- is there really a plot at all? Not to mention that the attempt to create some 'mystery' complete fails.
Review by houcan from the Internet Movie Database.
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