Throughout the history of cinema, the world has been faced with a few potentially apocalyptic scenarios, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the 2012 solar storm.
Post-apocalyptic movies have played on the primal fears that everyone experienced during these close calls, but with the safety of being an audience member. Stories about world-ending catastrophes and survivors traversing a post-apocalyptic wasteland have always been popular. It’s just become clear that the silver-screen fantasy is a lot more fun than the reality.
10 Best: Stalker (1979)
From the mind of Andrei Tarkovsky, the Soviet Union’s most prolific arthouse filmmaker, Stalker tells the story of a mysterious figure taking two disillusioned men – a writer looking for inspiration and a professor looking for new scientific endeavors – into the forbidden “Zone” to find a room that supposedly grants wishes.
Although it was initially dismissed by a lot of moviegoers, Stalker has come to be appreciated as one of the most thought-provoking masterpieces in the history of sci-fi cinema.
9 Worst: Left Behind (2014)
The film adaptation of the religious novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins is a Biblical plague in itself. What hath humanity done for the Lord to forsake us with this movie? Nicolas Cage plays a pilot and the Rapture takes place during one of his flights.
Despite the movie’s propagandic depiction of Christian doctrines, even the most devout God-fearer would be turned off by clunky, shoddy workmanship behind this movie.
8 Best: Children Of Men (2006)
In a dystopian near future, every woman in the world is infertile and humanity is on the verge of extinction. Children of Men stars Clive Owen as an everyman protagonist hired to protect the only pregnant woman in the world from the ravenous hordes that want her baby.
Alfonso Cuarón directed the movie as a visceral thrill-ride, with his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki bringing the grim realities of the story to life.
7 Worst: The Postman (1997)
After being showered with praise and awards for his directorial debut Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner got a little self-indulgent with his sophomore directorial effort, The Postman, a three-hour epic about a survivor in a post-apocalyptic wasteland donning a mailman’s uniform and a bag of mail in an attempt to spread hope across a bleak America.
Costner hogs his own camera for the entire painfully long runtime, and the tone is annoyingly treacly and sentimental.
6 Best: This Is The End (2013)
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg recruited their regular cohorts – James Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson etc. – to play satirical versions of themselves in their directorial debut, This is the End.
When the Christian apocalypse takes place during a party at Franco’s house, none of the vapid movie stars inside get raptured. The movie’s sense of humor is delightfully dark, and instead of being lit like a comedy, it’s lit like a horror movie, which is refreshing.
5 Worst: The 5th Wave (2016)
Back when The Hunger Games led to every single dystopian Y.A. book series getting a film adaptation, Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave was turned into a potential franchise that remained potential when its first installment bombed at the box office.
The best efforts of Chloë Grace Moretz can’t elevate The 5th Wave’s dull, muddled script. It has an important message, but the same message was conveyed better in Black Mirror’s “Men Against Fire” episode.
4 Best: Snowpiercer (2013)
Bong Joon-ho was finally recognized as one of the world’s finest filmmakers this year when his latest critique of the class divide, Parasite, won a boatload of Academy Awards. The director previously tackled this subject matter with Snowpiercer.
Set on a train containing Earth’s last survivors following a devastating Ice Age, Snowpiercer stars Chris Evans as a leader of a revolution by the lower-class carriages against the upper-class carriages who feed them bugs and keep them in line at gunpoint.
3 Worst: After Earth (2013)
In a world where animals have evolved into bloodthirsty mutants and driven humanity into outer space, Will and Jaden Smith return to the Earth’s surface for a dull, boring, emotionally uninvolving sci-fi spectacle.
The elder Smith was hoping that After Earth would launch a cinematic universe to rival that of Marvel and Star Wars. As it turned out, 100 minutes in this world was more than enough.
2 Best: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
A full 30 years after Mel Gibson’s last Mad Max movie, Beyond Thunderdome, George Miller rebooted the franchise with Tom Hardy replacing Gibson as the title character. No one expected Fury Road to be any good, but it was instantly praised as one of the greatest action movies ever made.
From Charlize Theron’s riveting portrayal of Furiosa to Miller’s spectacular use of practical stunt work, Fury Road is a masterpiece of action cinema.
1 Worst: Terminator: Salvation (2009)
The fourth Terminator movie finally stopped rehashing the same storyline of a cyborg being sent back in time to kill an important figure in the Resistance and took us past Judgment Day to the Resistance’s fight against Skynet.
Despite the limitless potential of a post-apocalyptic actioner about the last remnants of humanity battling evil androids, Terminator: Salvation is a dreadfully by-the-numbers blockbuster offering, with one-dimensional characterization and tedious action.
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July 04, 2020 at 05:30AM
