REPENT!!

As most people know, yesterday was the supposed “end of the world” as predicted by the Mayan calendar. Therefore, I appropriately watched the movie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World last night in order to prepare myself mentally for the end of all humanity…luckily that wasn't the case however and we have lived to see another day. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I actually am a big lover of the whole “end of the world/zombie apocalypse” genre. I have just always seemed to love seeing people in those sorts of situations and watching the theoretical way in which characters would react to them. I definitely prefer more of the serious interpretations such as Melancholia or 28 Days Later, but I still enjoy the occasional comedic twist to an obviously morbid situation.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World was a very enjoyable movie and fairly well made. I felt that Kiera Knightly and Steve Carrell did very well in their respectable roles and truly made you care about the outcome of them. I feel like most of the other characters were miscast/poorly written. I was thoroughly disappointed with Martin Sheen as the Father. The whole re-connection with him just didn't feel dramatic enough. The movie tried to smoothly transition from being just the goofy lovable comedy of a morbid situation (such as Shaun of the Dead) to the more dramatic character piece such as Melancholia, but I just didn’t feel like it nailed it well enough. The only two scenes in which I felt were impactful in a dramatic sense were the part where Penny (Kiera Knightly) was on the phone with her family, which bothered me how easy it was for her to just call them with a satellite phone but whatever, and the part at the very end of the movie where Dodge (Steve Carrell) is laying with Penny saying how much he loves her while also trying to keep her calm until the end came. Those were both fairly powerful moments within the movie that I enjoyed. I actually strongly disliked many of the comedic moments much more than the dramatic ones.

The part at the beginning where there was the party and when you met Dodge’s friends just didn’t land for me and I don't think I laughed once. I hate quite a few of those actors in there and thought the characters just weren't funny. I also didn't see the point of many scenes within the movie such as the guy who picked them up in the truck. It didn't add anything to the development of the Penny and Dodge’s relationship and it didn't have any comedy in it. It was basically a drawn out way of putting forth the idea that in the situation people would possibly pay a service to be murdered. It just took way too long and could have gotten the point across much quicker without wasting time that could have been devoted to developing the main characters more or at least donating more time to showing Dodge and his dad rekindling their relationship. I mean, come on. Dodge hasn’t seen his dad in 25 years and you can’t donate more than one scene to showing them rebuilding a relationship that only hadn’t a second chance because of the end of the world?? That whole dynamic between the two of them could have been so powerful and really shifted the movie towards the dramatic side they were looking for, but they failed at that.

Overall, I thought the movie was decent. Luckily I didn’t have super high expectations so I don’t have the disappointment factor. I would say that it hit and missed. I was entertained, but, sadly, it ended up fizzling away just like the Mayan's prediction.