IMDb reviews From IMDb
★ 7 / 10
With some sort of global apocalypse having occurred
CinemaSerf
With some sort of global apocalypse having occurred up top, a family have taken refuge deep inside a salt mine where dad’s previous profession in the energy…
With some sort of global apocalypse having occurred up top, a family have taken refuge deep inside a salt mine where dad’s previous profession in the energy sector has ensured that they live a civilised and well appointed life. With Reubens and Rembrandt augmenting their oak-clad walls, Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton have brought up their son, George MacKay, with the help of her best friend Bronagh Gallagher, a doctor (Lennie James) and their gay butler (Tim McInnerny). They spend their days rehearsing for disaster scenarios and rearranging their home, whilst the son writes a memoir for his father that marries an (environmental) history of the world with a curiously slanted homage to the efforts made by his father to provide unlimited cheap energy to the masses! Then one day, this Elysian dream becomes compromised by the arrival of a young girl (Moses Ingram) and that puts them into a quandary. Do they let her stay or do they evict her back from whence she came? If she stays, how might she upset the dynamic amongst a family who have clearly only a wafer thin sheen over a multitude of issues from their respective pasts that have largely been forgotten for then twenty-odd years they have lived their subterranean existences? There is singing, and a lot of singing - and with the possible exception of Ingram, none of them are very good at it. That doesn’t matter, though, as the score from Marius de Vries and Josh Schmidt combines just about everything from Rachmaninov and Gershwin to Lloyd-Webber, Rice, Pasek & Pau. Once your ears get used to the sometimes grimace-inducing falsetto of an enthusiastic MacKay and an on-form but fairly tuneless Swinton then this actually works quite entertainingly. Gallagher can always be relied upon to add a little vitality to a story and McInnerny also knows how to ham things up (just as he did in “Gladiator II”) to good effect, too. The timelines jump now and again, but never by much and it has quite a quirky effect on the delivery as characters appear to, well, disappear, at the end of the scene. MacKay steals this for me, delivering a role that reminded me a little of Luke Treadaway’s Olivier award winning stage effort as “Christopher” from “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time”. His journey to adulthood being tempered by a very slightly autistic characterisation; a dependant relationship with his mother and his own clearly awakening hormonal desires, too. It’s long, and at times can be a bit hit or miss - but generally it does flow along well, in a very theatrically staged fashion and if you are looking to see something that takes just about everyone from their comfort zone, then this might be for you.
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★ 5 / 10
Interesting concept that doesn't work at all
ejonconrad
Post apocalyptic movies are probably my favorite genre, and I love Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton, so I was really looking forward to this movie. I also…
Post apocalyptic movies are probably my favorite genre, and I love Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton, so I was really looking forward to this movie. I also like musicals, but I did have my doubts about whether the two genres could mix.Maybe they can, but not this time, because as a musical, it's *absolutely terrible*. The songs are so generic and bland that you forget them the minute they end. Seriously, I watched this last night and can't remember a single song. Michael Shannon does have a surprisingly good singing voice, but Tilda Swinton sounds pretty much exactly like you would expect Tilda Swinton to sound, and that's not good.Setting the music aside, it's a pretty mediocre story. It's about a family and a few others living an "idyllic" life underground after some sort of never specified apocalypse. Things get shaken up when a newcomer arrives, and then.... well, not much happens. Certainly not enough to fill two and a half hours.I'm glad I watched it on Hulu rather than wasting money at the theater.
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★ 5 / 10
Great Premise. Poorly Executed.
BoomerFan
Following a vaguely explained apocalypse, a married couple, their adult son and a tiny handful of servants have established a luxurious home in a salt mine…
Following a vaguely explained apocalypse, a married couple, their adult son and a tiny handful of servants have established a luxurious home in a salt mine, deliberately oblivious to whatever is happening in the world above. Under the controlling leadership of the patriarch (Michael Shannon) and his fearful wife (Tilda Swinton), they lead a comfortable existence. However, there are a multitude of relationship strains, past sins and guilt bubbling just below the surface. These all explode out into the open when a young woman somehow manages to find her way down into the mine. Her presence upsets the uneasy status quo that has sustained the sheltered "family" who have known no one but each other for at least two decades.Much of the overlong film consists of monologues and the aftermaths as each character's house of lies is rawly exposed. While the stories and interpersonal tensions could be interesting, it's much too talky (maybe a better word is too verbal, since some of the monologues and conversations are sung, as if in a musical theater). Not much else happens, nor is the origin and sustainability of this outpost ever really explained - where does all the food and power come from? How did they acquire some of the world's great artwork to display on the walls of their elaborately furnished drawing rooms.And why, oh why, did they bother with the musical numbers? If nothing else, they added to the film's excessive length. Tilda Swinton is a great actress, but she can't sing. Michael Shannon isn't much better at it. And neither makes any real effort to lip sync; though George MacCay as the son and Moses Ingram as the young woman do a decent job with the music.In the end, it never really comes together well enough to fully explain who these people are and why they are the way they are. The film is visually stunning and expertly produced, but it's cold and unfulfilling - just as its characters are.Ps. The streaming series Silo covers some of the same post-apocalypse territory, but does a far better job of portraying its underground isolation as a complete environment and society.
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Decadency. Movie looks almost like Rothschilds Surrealist Ball of 1972. Cultural InvaZION, hope they all will hide in bunkers and lava will cover the entrance and air vents, all elons and bezos and other zios.