The Road

_**Grey, maudlin post-apocalyptic drama with some horrific thrills**_ After a mass extinction event, a man & his son (Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee) walk from western Pennsylvania to the Southeast coast trying to survive a life-or-death situation in a world without laws as people prey on each other. Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce and Molly Parker show up for small parts. Based on Cormac McCarthy’s final novel, "The Road" (2009) is similar to “Carriers,” released almost three months earlier. Unlike semi-goofy post-apocalyptic films like the original Mad Max trilogy, "The Road" and "Carriers" are deadly serious from beginning to end with no comic book nonsense. This works in their favor because both films give us a window into what life would be like after a worldwide crisis destroys conventional society. Each film explores one's reaction to such a world-ending disaster: Do we forsake all sense of morality in an attempt to survive – lie, steal, forsake and murder – or do we hold on to our moral compass, come what may? Is life worth living if you must become an immoral, wicked savage to survive? Isn't it better to live with dignity at all costs – fight with nobility and die with dignity when and if we must? Some denounce both flicks on the grounds that they’re too downbeat and depressing, but wouldn't a lawless world be a very dire situation? In other words, the downbeat vibe reflects the reality of the story. However, “Carriers” is the superior of the two by far. “The Road” is tediously one-dimensional and unrelentingly somber. Plus the dynamics of the father & son are boring with the annoying boy almost singlehandedly ruining the movie. They needed to find a girl or a woman to shake things up – anything to dispel the grey monotony. The film runs 1 hour, 51 minutes, and was shot mostly in western Pennsylvania & West Virginia (the towering bridge), plus Oregon and Spirit Lake near Mount St. Helens, Washington (the log-jammed lake). GRADE: C+