bruce_lynn

My pet peeve with film scripts are plot driven by the characters doing stupid things. It just end up with you shouting at the screen "You idiot! Don't you realise that doing that will result in this problem??" (which invariably happens making the plot also predictable which is another script sin). This lazy writing means that you lose empathy with the character(s) that the contrived "conflict" that have thrust themselves into (as opposed to them being thrust into).

But it wasn't just this flaw which marred the writing. The main ingredients of the film were pretty hackneyed Western tropes. Also, the script left a number of other unsatisfactorily loose ends hanging. The supporting characters were awkwardly vague in their contribution to the central conflict as to whether they were helping or hurting things and why. The non-linear timeline was the script's strongest suit, but couldn't save the other shortcomings.

Boringly weak and cartoonish characters, stale gag-driven writing (often lapsing into slapstick which is only one level above punning in the humour purgatory), and a meandering plot make this tiresome watching. Trying to be a mash-up of two recent hits - "Succession" and "Ted Lasso" - it's just a mongrel SNL parody of both.

Everything is just taken too far so it becomes impossible to identify with the characters or take them seriously. A high school graduate who doesn't know how to turn on a computer? It is non-stop buffoonery with only smatterings of the characters behaving at all sensibly.

The A-lister Mindy Kayling is listed as writer and I wondered how she went from "The Office" gold to this (and then I found out she only wrote 2 episodes of the The Office).

The film must have gotten made on the pitch of "man seeks meaning/love with one month left before the end of the world." So many possibilities. Unfortunately, none of them seized in this pointless execution.

No sense - The depiction of the end of the world was, to start, completely unrealistic. Not that it wouldn't happen, but that the world would react in the way depicted if it did happen. The most obvious incongruity was people continuing to work at their jobs. It might have been fixed with a bit of time devoted to people being in denial or people wanting to generously help their fellow humans in the final days.

No congruity - One of the first words that comes to mind in describing the film is random. A random dog is adopted for no purpose in the film except something cute to tag along. A random guy shows up with a little pointless vignette. Keira Knightly's boyfriend seems to be nothing but a pointless cartoon character.

No arc - Steve Carrel starts as a depressed guy moping around and stays that way to pretty much the end. Keira is a flightly gal and pretty much stays that way to the end. How and why they form any relationship is a never clear starting with their very first bit of romance.