Carriers

I'm a huge fan of post-apocalypse movies, so CARRIERS was a given: a deadly airborne virus, a car full of survivors struggling to survive in a desperate and lonely world…yada yada yada, let's get moving with it. Unfortunately for me, Carriers turns out to be dead in the water. It's a soulless, pointless, plot less little exercise in human drama that offers nothing new and goes absolutely nowhere with it.

It does start off mildly interesting, as our protagonists (four twentysomething friends) stumble across a father caring for his infected daughter. There are genuine moments of tension along the way with this sub-plot, and you watch wondering how things turn out. Sadly, this plot is jettisoned after a time, and the storyline develops no further. Instead, the film seems content to dwell on listless moments of inanity. The characters sit around drinking or knock golf balls through windows (Fight Club this ain't). They argue, have sex, and have a run-in with some completely generic guys-in-biohazard-suits who seem to show up in every film like this. It all ends in an overblown, mountain-out-of-a-molehill climax that seems to think it's powerfully shocking when, in fact, it's quite simply passé.

It seems that American films have lately got stuck in a rut, casting their movies with obnoxious characters (I'm thinking of CHRONICLE) who spoil what have the potential to be otherwise good movies. Certainly, Chris Pine is one of the most unappealing leads I've seen in a while (he acts as pretty much the same type of one-dimensional hot-headed jerk that he played in STAR TREK) and the rest barely get a look in; Emily Van Camp, who might well be the best actor present, has about all of ten lines to contend with.

Like I said, I love post-apocalypse movies…but this non-starter is nothing more than a test of patience.