User reviews

The Road (1:50, R) — Science Fiction, 3rd string, original

Among the first words spoken in The Road (adapted from Cormac McCarthy's novel) are "It's just another earthquake.". That's supposed to be reassuring.

It's a bleak, devastated, post-apocalyptic world leached of everything: color, sounds, names, sunshine, warmth, joy, hope. Thru it trudge The Man (Viggo Mortenson) and The Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee), slowly and painfully making their way to "the coast", where maybe things will be marginally better. Who can say? But what else is there?

Along the way they encounter The Gang Member (Garret Dillahunt, still as creepy and frightening as he was in The Sarah Connor Chronicles and The Last House on the Left), The Road Gang Leader (Brenna Roth), The Old Man (Robert Duvall), The Thief (Michael K. Williams), and The Veteran (Guy Pearce) and his woman (Molly Parker). In flashbacks to an achingly lost former life, we see The Wife (Charlize Theron).

And really, once you've named the names, you've pretty well covered the movie. The name of the game is Survival, tho none can say what the point of it is. The food is gone, and clearly no more will be growing. Humans are apparently the only animals to survive the unnamed global disaster, so they represent the sole remaining, rapidly dwindling source of protein. The voices you hear approaching are not the Red Cross.

Some choose not to play. The Wife, after some low-energy soul-searching, goes the ancient-Eskimo route. "She was gone," The Man remembers, "and the coldness of it was her final gift."

Others persevere for no cogent reason. "DId you ever wish you would die?", The Man asks. "No," The Old Man replies, "it's foolish to ask for luxuries in times like these."

The Man and The Boy have 1 gun with 2 bullets left; they are not being reserved for potential assailants. In some of the movie's most agonizing scenes, we see The Man explain not only what must be done but why.

I walked into this movie 10 hours after leaving the theater where Avatar splashed the screen with color, motion, activity, purpose, a 3rd dimension, and a superb sound track. It is difficult to imagine 2 more disparate films in terms of tone and atmosphere. But both are extremely effective at making their respective worlds seem completely real.

The movie is unremittingly grim and completely believable. It doesn't pull its punches or sell out. It will haunt you. It's unlikely that anyone else will ever make another movie that treats the end of the world so realistically, so if you want to see the standard against which all others will be compared, this is your chance.

Stay away if you're depressed or prone to it, and avoid razor blades for 12 hours afterward.

Just got back from seeing THE ROAD.

I had been very impressed by the novel and was concerned about how it would be adapted. The tone of the novel is almost unremittingly bleak and a 100% faithful adaptation would be very difficult to watch.

I'm happy to report that the film is very good indeed. It solves the problem of being unendurably depressing by concentrating on the emotional impact of the unspecified Armageddon, rather than the day to day fight for food, shelter and so on. So while at times it remains very upsetting it is shot through with hope rather than despair. I always felt the end of the novel was somewhat out of kilter with the rest of it but in the film it seems quite appropriate.

I think the film is more about the collapse of civility rather than civilization: for a film that shows the last remnants of mankind struggling to eke out an existence it is remarkably concerned with relationships. That's probably why the exact cause of the catastrophe is left blank: the film isn't really about the end of the world so much as the end of society. It's an interesting companion piece to NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN in which an ageing man sees nothing but horror in the modern world. In THE ROAD a man convinces himself, for the sake of his son, that humanity will abide even in the face of appalling conditions.

While watching this movie I thought to myself that it was good I had already read the book. This was because the movie is agonizingly desperate and sad--often times it was just too much to absorb or handle in such a large dose. You can't put this movie down like you can with the book. Unlike the book being beautifully written, in an almost poetic prose, which distracted the reader from the subject, the movie is not beautifully shot. In your face is desperation, agony, and death.

I can understand why this movie was shelved for a year. Do not go into it looking to be entertained, at best look to be intellectually stimulated. This is no popcorn movie.

I just got home from seeing "The Road" and my stomach is still in a knot. I never read the book and therefore won't be making any comparisons. I'll simply comment on the film.

I can't imagine the performances being any better from any of the actors, starting at Viggo and working my way down to the smallest roles. I can't imagine the bleak post-apocalyptic world being portrayed any more realistically. I can't imagine the general feeling of sadness, desperation, hopelessness, terror and pain being captured more accurately. If that was the goal, the people involved in the making of this movie did their job magnificently.

Having said that, it isn't for everyone. I saw this movie alone because I had a feeling my wife wouldn't be into it. It's tough to watch. However, in the midst of this recession brought on by greed and materialism, I think it's a movie that everyone of age SHOULD see in order to put things back into perspective, if only for a day.

I had a lump in my throat through most of the movie and was desperate to get home and hug my two boys through most of it as well. I also felt like downsizing our entire life in terms of the unnecessary "stuff" we have. I imagined how many homeless people wander the streets right now with that feeling of hopelessness and desperation. What more could I ask from a Saturday afternoon at the theater? It's this kind of movie that helps maintain a degree of integrity in the film industry among the inaneness that surrounds it.

A man (Viggo Mortensen) struggles to survive a post apocalyptic world with his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). It is a damned hopeless existence of cannibals and desolation. No animal has survived and even the trees are almost all burnt. They have a gun with only two bullets. In flashbacks, the man and his pregnant wife (Charlize Theron) initially survive the devastation.

The difference between this movie and the rest of the apocalyptic genre is the utter hopelessness. Most of them would give some hope or a mission to save the world. This one has nothing but the bleakest of vision. There is a question about morality in a hopeless world. Exactly how far would he go to have his son survive. Could they still be the good guys? I would have liked him to face an ultimate choice in a final showdown.

The wonderful thing about the Road is that it will more than likely please the two camps: the one that has not read Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer prize-winning book, and the one that has. There's the nervous feeling one gets when watching the theatrical trailer, though - will it be this super action-packed spectacle, will those images that open the trailer with "THE END OF THE WORLD IS NEAR!" stick around, and will Charlize Theron actually be in the movie that much? As it turns out, if you liked the book very much and worried about how its uber-bleak and incredibly dark and (especially) gray landscapes would appear, it provides that perfectly. And if you haven't read the book... it still works as a movie, as a simple-but-not story of a father and son survival drama- and clinging on to their humanity- first, and then a post-apocalypse thriller far second.

To describe the plot is not impossible but sort of unnecessary. All you need to know going in (if you're part of not-read-book camp) is that a father and son, after becoming on their own after the mother of the house exits, are traveling together across a true post-apocalypse landscape to a coast. We never are given a fully clear explanation as to why or how the apocalypse happened. This is more than fine; because John Hillcoat's film centers on the father and son (called in the credits simply Father and Son, played by Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee), there doesn't need to be anything really specific. At least this will be fine for most people who may be by now tired of the usual viral or religious or (damn) 2012-type explanations. We're given hints though, to be sure, that there may have been mutations or some kind of earth-bound phenomenon (earthquakes happen a couple of times), and past this we, like the travelers, are left to our own devices.

How it happened isn't as fascinating and visually compelling, anyway, than how it looks. The Road provides us many scenes and vistas that are precisely grim and desolate and terrible. Some of these are full of visual details like big city-scape shots, and others, like when the Father and Son are on the ramp of a highway, is intimate and hard (this setting also provides one of the most touching moments as Mortensen's character finally 'lets go' of two important details from the deceased mother of his son). And other times Hillcoat lets us just take in the gray-ness of everything, just as one could take in the sight of masses of flies in his film the Proposition. It's against this backdrop of rain and sludge and grime and decay that imbues this intense bond between the father and son so greatly, and the complexity that comes with not just staying alive but retaining humanity and dignity and doing right and wrong by the people they encounter.

This may not be news to people who read the book. I still, having read it two years ago (which sadly seems like long ago in usually remembering specific images of a book), can't get the descriptions of scenes out of my head, or the stark manner of how characters talked and dread and existential horror was relayed. But, again, the film not only respects this but gives it further life. Dialog scenes in the movie- save for a couple of the flashback scenes with Charlize Theron's Mother character- are never obtrusive to the storytelling, which is a rightful concern to have with an adaptation of the book. And, more importantly, the acting and chemistry between the two leads is incredible. Mortensen is a given to be an actor embedded in his character, so much so that when he takes off his shirt we see his bony torso as being really that, and watching him is magnetic. Yet it's also crucial to see how good the kid Smit-McPhee is too, especially when it comes time for scenes where the boy has to deal with his father's growing desperation or the electrifying showdown with a thief.

To be sure, a couple of walk-on roles by Guy Pearce as another fellow traveler and especially Robert Duvall as a "90 year old man" as his character says provide some needed space, and Hillcoat has a couple of very wise flashback/dream bits with The Man and his wife (namely a very small, brilliant moment at a piano), but it's the all on the two main character to lead the film, and it's on them that it delivers so strongly. As long as you know that this is a film centered not on big action sequences (though there are a couple), and not on big special effects (though there's that too), and it's more akin to a life-or-death-and-what-else story not unlike Grave of the Fireflies, you'll know what you're getting with the Road.

It is very depressing on the whole, and not exactly what I would recommend as a 'first-date' movie - unless you're so hot for Mortensen and/or Cormac McCarthy you don't care either way. However, it's *good* depressing, and equally the best adaptation of the book possible while a tremendous, original vision for the casual movie-goer.

Greetings again from the darkness. The most recent adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel brought us the fantastic No Country for Old Men (Coen Bros.). McCarthy's post-apocalyptic The Road did not seem to set up well as filmed entertainment. Director John Hillcoat proves otherwise.

Make no mistake. This film is as bleak and filled with despair as any you have ever seen. This is not the SFX of fluff like 2012. This is the humanistic side of desperation and survival in a world where what little has survived seems grotesque and evil.

It is a phenomenal movie from a technical aspect, yet a higher rating seems off the mark, as so very few movie goers will find the entertainment value of such an achievement. While viewing, one can't help but weigh the ever-present option of suicide. What would we do in this situation? Do you continue to carry the fire or do you ask, what's the point, and hit the eject trigger? If you thought Charlize Theron was unappealing in Monster, you will find her absolutely intolerable here. Her beauty is overridden by her angst and unwillingness to continue the fight for her survival. Is she the rational one or totally selfish? Really good question.

The vast majority of the film is Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee on their quest for the coast ... their ultimate goal for survival. The gray and lifeless landscape would (and does)suck the hope and soul right out of most. Viggo keeps trudging while teaching his young, more sensitive son, who by the way, is a dead ringer for Charlize (were she a 12 year old boy). The grayness of the film is so intense, that the dream/flashback sequences couldn't help but make me wonder if life were black and white, would dreams be vivid and colorful? Fans of No Country for Old Men will catch a glimpse of Garret Dillahunt as the hillbilly gang member who stumbles upon the Father and Son - Dillahunt was Tommy Lee Jones' entertaining deputy. Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce also have brief, but welcome, supporting roles. Duvall actually does quite a bit with his limited lines.

While it seems odd to release this one at Thanksgiving - it's not in the tradition of mass-appeal holiday fare, it is a must see for any true film lover or literature addict. To see the gray and stillness become as overwhelming as what is usually limited to one's imagination is worth the effort.

With a surplus of post-apocalyptic/disaster flicks present in today's film circle, the Road does what very few films in any genre seem capable of doing. Here is a picture that in it's own discreteness captures the realism of a holocaust horror, combining the absolute worst possible future with the most profoundly beautiful human characteristics that keep the main characters persevering. Not only does the story accurately exhibit the polar opposite aspects of a post apocalyptic existence, but the cinematography used during the flashbacks of a life full of color and hope many take for granted, is excellently positioned with the dark, dismal, and often terrifying reality that is the Road. The score was also fantastic and perfectly appropriate for the film.

The only two, minor issues I had were the sound editing, (MINOR!) and the ending which was NOT at all a disappointment, but I felt it was quite open, without giving anything away. This is, again, a minor issue, for the story in itself was a journey, and we see only a small portion of the great, tragic, and ultimately fulfilling struggle.

And, though I'm sure no more attention is necessary, the acting as a whole was phenomenal. Each film since LOTR Viggo has greatly improved and I'd like to think of this as the beginning of his finest hour. Very few performances touch me emotionally, and his was certainly one of them, in three scenes in particular which were, being discrete, (the parting flashback, the dinner, and the climax.) Well done, the Road, thank you Mr. Mortenson.

The Road - Viggo Mortensen stars in the role of "Man" who contends with cannibals and earthquakes all for the safety of "Boy" (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Flashbacks to the start of the not-explained apocalyptic situation show us "Man"s relations with now dead "Wife" (Charlize Theron).

I eagerly awaited this film as soon as I saw the trailer, in spite of my growing impatience with the litany of apocalypse films now on the market. Viggo Mortensen has, with the exception of "Appaloosa", been in a series of exceptional films in this decade and created several unforgettable characters. His portrayal of "Man" is, if not unique, certainly convincing as a man on the edge of defeat in a harsh and impossible situation. If anything can bring him over the edge, it is his incessantly whining hindrance of a son.

In the genres of horror and survival, writers feel that no situation is too barren and terrible that a defenseless sidekick cannot be added on to make it even more unbearable. It's one of the things that needs to be dropped from the mix because when it doesn't work, a film risks being plain unenjoyable. In this case, Kodi Smit-Mcphee says "Papa!" enough times with enough incessant pleading to give all but the most maternal viewer a headache. When Man gives Boy a revolver with one bullet to commit suicide, I immediately think that with those big gloves and that sad sniffle, the Boy will likely botch the job. This is a child with no born survival instinct. Every decision Boy demands (loudly) is almost certainly the wrong one. Can we invite scary looking Robert Duvall over to dinner? Can we follow the possibly cannibalistic boy back to his tribe? Can I shout loudly whenever something might be around, thereby directing it to my location? If Boy is supposed to be a gift from God, I'd say God truly has screwed the world over.

It transformed quickly from being an eagerly awaited film to one that demands nit-picking concerning logic in character choices, especially since survival is so pertinent. If you have a small gun with two bullets, do you a) teach your son how to commit suicide (for over the top dramatic effect) or b) use one of said two bullets to kill an armed man and take his gun? Alas, director John Hillcoat and writer Joe Penhall are less interested in logistics and specifics (what exactly happened to bring us to this state?) than in loose Bible associations and simple Western ideas of "good" and "bad". "We're the good guys, right?" Struggling for that nobility in a world ripped apart is as futile as it is tacky and simple. The only thing that seems to be in shades of gray is the scenery.

The atmosphere of The Road is bleak and suitably depressing. The film provides some thrills and chills but they are few and far between. It loses steam about two thirds of the way through, where I lost concern for the safety of the characters. It's not bad, but a long shot from Mortensen's usual. The Road gets a B-

By Zach Copeland "The Road" Takes Fresh Approach to Post-Apocalyptic Genre Ever since God flooded out the entire human race in the early pages of Genesis, literature has abounded with stories of the apocalypse. For generation after generation, from The Book of Revelations to The Stand, we have obsessed over the end of the world, how it will come to pass, and what, if anything, we can do to stop it. Now that humankind has reached a point where the End could conceivably happen in an afternoon, our glimpses into this theoretical future are all the more intriguing. And they've never been more important.

The Road, directed by John Hillcoat (The Proposition) and based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy (No Country For Old Men), is a dark, poignant story of a father and son journeying through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, withstanding harsh weather, malnutrition, and under the constant threat of marauders, thieves and cannibals. Their goal is simple: to carry on.

Those looking to sink their teeth into mindless disaster-porn (not that there's anything wrong with that) can get their fix elsewhere. The Road is a smaller, more penetrating film that draws strength from its intimacy and its ability to do so much with so little.

Viggo Mortensen gives an emotional tour de force as the embattled father; look for him on the red carpet come March. Watching children act is oftentimes painful for me, but I thought Kodi Smit-McPhee was impressive and genuine as the son, and takes on the task of being in literally every scene with rare fearlessness. Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, and Guy Pearce give small but highly memorable performances, Duvall in particular, whose portrayal of a withered old man journeying all alone will haunt you.

The desolate environment in which the story takes place is itself a character, foreign yet eerily familiar, and so perfectly conceptualized that it matches – heck, surpasses the standard of realism set by films such as 28 Days Later and Children of Men. Shot throughout four states, including at the site of the Mount St. Helens eruption, Hillcoat and cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (The Others, The Sea Inside) paint a backdrop that is altogether beautiful and devastating.

They say that every generation since the dawn of man has feared the End, and while this may be true, not every generation has seen what our modern technology is capable of. The Road is a dark looking glass into our future, and what it is likely to become if our primal nature is left unchecked.

Early in the film, the son looks at his father and asks him, "We're the good guys, right?" The father's response is in the affirmative, but as their situation become increasingly desperate, that sense of morality we think to be ingrained is put to the test. Hillcoat does a masterful job of portraying human beings as what we are and always have been. He holds up a mirror to the world and hypnotizes you with it.

As far as post-apocalyptic movies go, The Road is hands-down one of the best ever made. Despite its raw, gritty facade, which will understandably be a turn-off for many theatergoers, the story underneath has a sense of serenity that everyone can relate to.

The Road opens everywhere on November 25. Need I say more? *The Film Crusade* www.filmcrusade.com/survive-and-advance/

I read Cormac McCarthy's novel a few years ago & figured it would be made into a movie (this was when "No Country for Old Men" was playing) but I wondered how they could make this extremely grim tale into something that people would want to see.

This film was every bit as grim as the novel and it seemed to be a faithful adaptation of it. The characters seemed more believable in the film than in the novel. This is probably due to the medium but Viggio Mortenson did a fabulous job as the Protagonist (the unnamed father) and his son was also great. They both were tremendous and brought a lot of character development and engagement to an otherwise totally bleak story.

I loved Robert Duvall's turn as the grizzled survivor. It was a supporting role sure to win an Oscar nomination. I think this will win more than its share of Oscar nominations, for Viggio at the very least.

Great film, go check it out.

The Road is an excellent atmosphere film, and it delivers the feeling of bleakness and desperation incredibly well, and the cinematography and music compliment that atmosphere perfectly. Unfortunately, that runs out of gas halfway through the film when the viewer realizes that it's not going anywhere, and that the characters - though well-played - are just not interesting or sympathetic enough to really be cared for in any way. Ultimately the film lacks in both soul and story structure - worst of all, the ending, which is supposed to be bitter-sweet, is more likely to raise a very unfitting chuckle. The Road is not by any means a bad movie, but for the price it demands from the viewer in emotional exhaustion, it's just not worth it. I'd recommend it to film-students and cinematography enthusiasts only.

I enjoy the Fallout series of games. In these games, you play a person who's survived a nuclear apocalypse and explore the wasteland of America completing quests and missions. Being computer games, they're designed to be fun and entertaining.

Dystopia is popular right now. From the unending surge of zombies (World War Z, Walking Dead, etc.) to YA (Hunger Games, Maze Runner) to more series, adult media (Automata, Blade Runner 2049).

For all their attempts at making the future look grim, I personally find them quite appealing. I loathe paperwork, you see. It's the bane of my existence. I'm someone who does. I enjoy my job, for the most part, but mention 'stakeholders', 'APR percentage' and 'audits' and my brain switches off. I honestly don't care, and it stresses the hell out of me. It does more than that. It makes me miserable - depressed, even. I can't cope with it. I can't cope with the intricacies of the bureaucratic system. It confuses me, it gets me into trouble when I don't even know why, I hate it. I hate it with a passion.

I have anarchic tendencies. I believe that our biology is designed to help us survive against nature. We're intelligent beings, and we've evolved to cope with the adversities thrown at us by nature.

The thing is, I believe I would stand a better-than-average chance of surviving the apocalypse. I'm intelligent, and I'm tough as old boots. Ask me to do a tax rebate and I'm utterly useless, but I don't care about the cold or the heat or noise while I sleep. I'll deal with that no problem.

And that's the thing with dystopian fiction - it appeals to me. They show us worlds where people like me would actually be quite successful when the vast majority of people would flounder.

But not The Road. I've read the book, and it's bleak. Utterly, utterly bleak. I'm under no illusion that our usual media diet romanticises the apocalypse - makes it strangely appealing, despite everything. The Road does not. From start to finish, it's cynical, miserable, depressing, extremely grey (like, it might as well be in black and white) and raw.

There's no attempt as making the apocalypse look positive - adding some glamour into it like the Fallout games do.

This is not really science fiction. If you address it rationally by questioning the character motivations you'll be disappointed. This is not really sci fi in the traditional sense. This isn't a strict narrative. Characters act irrationally, even stupidly, and the whole cause of the apocalypse is unexplained.

This, instead, is a drama with an apocalyptic backdrop. It's completely non-political. It doesn't care about the causes of the trouble, but rather how people react to it. It's a psychological examination of the question: 'How do you retain your sense of morality when everyone else has forsaken theirs?'.

That's a difficult question to answer. Does the film do it satisfactorily? In my view, no. It's a big topic, and I wonder if the film has felt too conflicted by its commercial needs to make some money and its desire to tell a more cerebral narrative than your average blockbuster. Certain aspects are glossed over. Other things are ignored completely and logic falls by the wayside more than once.

It moved me, however. To tears. And it really did get me thinking. Hey, life's pretty good. I may not be brilliant at coping with the unending form-filling and I'm never going to care much about the petty conflicts that dominate local politics, but I have money, food and shelter...and friends...and family. That's what storytelling is about.

If you go into The Road expecting a zombie-style action-fest you'll be disappointed. It's slow-paced and repetitive and never gives any character any glory, No one's a hero. Go into it, right now, at this time when the media is fixated on the Middle East conflict(s), Russia, North Korea, Cambridge Analytica, nationalism, #metoo, Brexit, Trump, Iran, whatever and everyone is losing their s*** and you might find yourself approaching it very differently.

"We are not gonna quit. We are gonna survive this." The Man

Survival is the ultimate motif of the Cormack McCarthy Pulitzer The Road. And so too is the film adaptation, faithful to the original while adding what McCarthy can't—the actualization of a landscape barren of life and humans barren of humanity. Then again, the film's failure is being even bleaker than the source, a testimony to the power of the imagination.

Except for a father (Viggo Mortensen) and young son (Kodi Smit-Mcphee), who represents the hope of the human race as the story assumes the trappings of allegorical, post-apocalyptic literature and film where the desolate outside mirrors the lonely inside of the humans, not all of whom are willing to carry on the good fight. Suicide becomes a leitmotif, a companion to hope as if out of a Bergman film, an escape from the horrible aftermath of devastation never explained. So much the better because allegorically there are numerous ways for us to ruin our earth and our spirits. Not the least of which could be nuclear or cannibal; the former does not make an appearance while the latter is omnipresent.

Director John Hillcoat has emphasized more than McCarthy the role, by flashback, of the wife/mother (Charlize Theron), but overall he has taken dialogue directly from the novel and stayed true to the bleak landscape where the sun doesn't shine and the trees fall intermittently like humans giving up the ghost.

The gray tones and beat up humans are like those in most post- apocalyptic films; however, as in Children of Men to a lesser extent, the focus is on how to survive, not even how to avoid death. In both cases, it's up to the young ones to "carry a fire' (the mantra of The Road), itself a metaphor for the strength to survive:

"Everything depends on reaching the coast. I told you I would do whatever it takes." The Man