The Last Kids on Earth

Right of the bat I was very intrigued by this show. The premise could have been more original but I liked it and I liked the tone. We had a fun narrator-protagonist making the best of a bad apocalypse. They way that video game mechanics are liberally integrated into the visual style are fresh, vibrant and also add a poignant edge as we realise that this is his coping mechanism to not deal with the vicious reality.

"Book 1" is our feature length pilot that "Book 2" sadly never quite equals because there's simply too much filler. There's something very charming in this band of kids that would mostly never socialize in real life becoming a surrogate family including a school bully with some nerds and *that* kind of girl.

I think June is a pretty well developed character but a part of me can't shake that she is a very deliberate and somewhat pandering example of the "strong female". It's not that she's a caustic and strong that I dislike, I think it's awesome, but she has Hermione Granger syndrome where she is blatantly the most competent and emotionally mature character and must remain a sort of mother to the male characters that surround her. I know that's a rather pedantic issue but I've been reading Firestone...

Jim's very well acknowledged crush on her from the beginning prevents them ever being a satisfying romantic interest. As for Jim himself, he gradually becomes a less and less relatable character from his incorrigible habit of going rogue.

As I mentioned, a lot of this is filler, but at it's best we have a mature story of people dealing with formidable situations and learning to trust each other. At times very predictable, it was easy to want to see what they were dealing with this week. The set pieces, epic monster battles and superb creature design never disappoint.

Could it be better? Sure. But you could do so much worse.

If you're wondering should you watch this with you kid....Easy answer. YES!! Zombie/Monster Apocalypse strikes small town USA, and it's up to a handful of kids (I'm guessing 11-12 years old) to stop them. I'd put the horror on a scale of Scooby Doo or Ben 10 if that helps. I'm only one episode in but my 8 yr old son is absolutely loving it. Movies that work for him have this common theme....kids saving the day doing grown up things like driving cars (remember it's an apocalypse...light traffic), awesome action and animation with the proper amount of jokes (there's a sentence I never thought I'd wright;) Harmless horror/action cartoon perfect for the upcoming Halloween season approaching. Hope this helps.

Now that was a monster slaying, zombie killing apocalypse of fun and loved the animation, the sense of humour and the plot.

I'm never going to grow old for animation because it just gets better every time and makes me feel young again when watching.

The series tells how children can survive and have fun in an apocalyptic world. The absence of any parents in our series leaves the children alone and we watch their adventures. The illustrations of the animation are beautiful and sweet. The creatures drawn are super cool. The fact that the characters in the series make decisions on their own and endure the consequences together, like a good or bad family, is a beautiful element in the series. If you are looking for a sweet apocalyptic world series, The Last Kids On Earth is for you.

I liked the movie as an adult to which the interactive stories format is a novelty, but the kind of horror story sanitized for children vibe really threw me off. There are four kids that are walking cliches who perkily describe themselves as the last kids on Earth after a magical void turned everybody to monsters and zombies. They have fun, they drive a car around monsters or fight them, they die sometimes, but they are always commercial-like happy. It's creepy as hell!

I liked the badge system that kind of lets you know when you finished a particular branch, but there is no way to see how many badges you got or there are still to get, which makes it kind of pointless. I liked the fast-forward system that stops at a decision, but I also disliked that they show an entire scene before letting you choose, so for three choices you have to see the pre-choice scene three times. I liked how they combined the animation scenes in the different flows, although some were a bit off, like failing to get an item, but following with a scene where a kid puts something in the trunk.

Bottom line: a good effort, much more fun than Bandersnatch and more entertaining than Carmen Sandiego. It's still not working as it should, though, as it is hard to feel you are in a story from the moment one reaches the end and has to select from the latest choices backwards, otherwise they lose the choice tree.