As is often the case when trying to articulate my thoughts on a Syfy Channel Original Movie, I'm conflicted. I just watched The End Of The World, a rare lighthearted comedic effort that I have to admit is probably more well written and acted than your typical Syfy flick. And yet, the premise and its execution, chock full of meta in-jokes and goofy nerd references, left me cold and a little condescended to. On the whole I probably enjoyed it more than most of these Syfy movies I've watched recently, and yet conversely it probably pissed me off more than any of them as well.
As
I mentioned in my review of Ghost Storm, I'm much more partial to the
Syfy Monster movies than the Disaster ones, and The End Of The World is clearly in the Disaster camp. Except, the film isn't just a Disaster
movie, but rather a self referential meta deconstruction of Syfy
Disaster movies, starring two nerds who've seen every Syfy Disaster
movie, and thus know exactly what to do when they find themselves in
one. The disaster in question is a relatively boring one, at least compared to a storm made of freaking ghosts, in this case a barrage of meteors made of electricity that like all things that fall out of the sky in these movies, seem to have a way of pinpointing unsuspecting people from orbit. I wish they would have done a movie like this just with a
monster instead of a disaster, and I also wish I could ignore my
misgivings and enjoy it more as it is.
A
couple of years ago there was a movie called Fanboys, about a group
of Star Wars fans who, among other things, get into a feud with a
group of Star Trek fans. Because, you know, those are two clearly
demarcated groups with no intersection between them, and they hate
each other, right? The End Of The World made me feel as stupid and
angry as that movie did so many years ago, displaying a shameless
need to appeal to so-called “geek culture” with completely
shallow quotes and references, and no real understanding of the
audience to which it is so crassly trying to satisfy. My knowledge of
science fiction and general nerdity is probably more encyclopedic
than either of the main characters in this movie, but I don't act
like they do, because I don't live in a TV movie where my actions are
written by someone who doesn't know or care about people like me
except as a demographic.
And
yet, I still enjoyed this movie in spite of myself, mostly due to the
two main leads, Heroes' Greg Grunberg and Eureka's Neil Greyston, who
are both affable enough to carry the silly premise and make me
forgive its somewhat insulting exaggerations. And of course, Brad
Dourif as a crotchety old professor goes a long way to making me
forget the slights and just enjoy the ride. Unfortunately the tone is
a little too light a lot of the time, especially when the body count starts
rising. This movie shares the Syfy movie penchant for unsympathetic
brutality, which I typically love, but doesn't really work as well
when the characters are expected to keep cracking jokes even after
their friends and family die in front of them in ridiculously
horrible ways.
Stupid
line this week is not so much stupid as groan inducingly on the nose,
in which our two main characters watch a movie off screen, and one of
them remarks on how good “that guy from Heroes” is in it.
Overall, The End Of The World is a better than average Syfy movie
that only really bothered me due to a personal bias I have against
the approach it took to representing people like me. I wanna say that
if you're not like me, you might enjoy it, but then, if you're not
like me, you're probably not the kind of person who unironically
enjoys Syfy Channel Original Movies. And this is not the kind of
movie you can appreciate ironically or enjoy for its riffability or
snark value. You either accept it for what it is and get whatever you
can out of it, or you don't. Despite my personal problems with it, I
still think the experience was worth it.
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