The Day

"The Day" started out very promising for me, but within a half hour unexpectedly turned a different direction. Which for some of you may actually be a plus but I'm old school. It is filmed in the greys of a post apocalyptic ravaged world with most of the movie set in an old farm house. The protagonists are not zombies, or aliens, or some lethal mutant virus....or even just survival of a wasted world and that's where it disappointed me. Yet I think most people into apocalyptic movies will like this movie a lot...(Especially If you like quite a bit of kickass action and blood and guts) For a movie obviously on a budget it's all VERY well done. The directing and acting is excellent. There are lots of scenes done at night, a bit hard to follow and a few editing slips, but the vast majority of this movie is HUGE leaps and bounds, in every aspect, above most smaller and lower budget productions in the post apocalyptic genre. So if the subject matter interests you, I have no doubt you should give this movie a try.

I was looking forward to this movie as positive reviews and a strong cast certainly pointed in the right direction. I now have very mixed feelings about it however. Let me see what's good - gritty shooting style, certainly nobody looked like they stepped out of a hairdressers. Expanding upon post apocalyptic themes hinted at in The Road. Displaying multiple sides of this story through characters. All looking good, however I felt I really didn't warm to any of them and they seemed mostly a little on the shallow side. There is an attempt most certainly at maintaining a modicum of realism which is appreciated however this stumbles on a hurdle when the action really kicks off and we veer into common territory of seemingly unintelligent foes. I think what got me most however was the dark night scenes there was mostly natural light used for effect however I found this hard to watch, I mean, what's going on hard. And that period of the movie ruined the narrative for me downgrading it somewhat. Maybe it was where I was viewing it..maybe not. I was going to give this a 4 however that's only because I had high hopes, its still better than a lot of movies so a 5 that should have been higher. I recommend the German film HELL certainly well above this movie with similar themes and much better execution.

Bleak and fairly effective low-budget survivalism in the post-apocalyptic hellscape. Set ten years after the no-need-to-explain end of world (one character notes: "it's been two years since we heard a bird chirp)and with, in the first half of the movie, a cinéma vérité feel, what remains of humanity seems to be running on fumes. Whereupon, events take a turn for the worse.

Produced by and featuring Dominic Monaghan, the script initially appears to tread the conventions of a zombie movie, until it becomes clear that the five main characters face opponents far worse than the undead.

Well considered use of color-bleached cinematography keep the protagonists trapped in a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD milieu even as the enemy enjoys blue-eyed, blue-sky color.

Up to this point the first three reviewers were raving about this and added a very positive vibe out for this movie. While I won't disagree with them (it's a decent movie), I cannot fully share their enthusiasm. The movie is excellently shot (moody if you want to call it that) and has a stellar cast. But I never felt that it went places (no pun intended) or had the upper hand on other, similar movies.

One of them being "The Divide", which I thought had some interesting ideas and was also confined in an area, but was also more compact and more suspenseful overall. The movie on hand is good too and if you like your end of the world thriller to have some drama and action mixed in, this won't disappoint you. Just don't expect it to be more than meets the eye (characters are well drawn, but nothing pushes this over the edge for me)

The only thing that I think hamstrings this movie is poor production quality. They shoulda just burn the house down rather using VFX that says it is present in the movie. Otherwise, the screenplay was taut. People who confuse action for fast, abstruse editing cuts, a-la Michael Bay maybe disappointed but action that forwards the script will delight true movie connoisseurs. Good indies are hard to come by. Finding one is like finding a treasure. For me 'The Day' is to zombie/apocalypse what 'According to Greta' is to coming of age and 'City island' is to family dramedy.

The kills are good and guns don't don't have unlimited ammo. I'd say it does flag a bit in the second act but the climax delivers. But I'd also say that this movie is not for everybody. Save it for a day when not in the mood rom-coms are brain investing movies. Put your eyes on auto-pilot, grab a cold one, and viola! That's a decent 90 minutes right there.