The Human Race

DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THE INTERESTING SOUNDING STORYLINE AND THE OKAY COVER.

This movie is the worst excuse for a movie I have ever seen. I don't know how it was released (let alone in movie stores) and I'm not even sure how it has gotten a rating of above 2 on IMDb.

The acting is horrendous, most elements of the movie are completely unrealistic and the final scene just makes the entire thing ever more confusing and far-fetched. There is no background, no attempt to help you build a connection to the characters and quite simply boasts awful acting, terrible filming and confusion. By the time the credits come, you're just left thinking "what did I even just watch?"

Don't even bother, this movie isn't worth your time.

1/10

I surprised that this movie turned out so divisive, while certainly not everyones cup of tea it is certainly very memorable and interesting. I like simple set-ups like this, classic battle royal setup, clearly communicated rules for the audience and participants to understand and a diverse range of characters from all ranges of life.

The Human Race cleverly avoids offering a clear protagonist to root for allowing you to pick your own champion or play the "what would I do" game in your head. All of that achieves one thing: it makes the movie more engaging, if you are willing to engage with it. It helps that the pacing, editing and cinematography move things along quickly without much downtime.

The performances are a bit hit and miss, some are terrible (cyclist guy) some are okay (one legged guy) and some are really good (especially the deaf girl). The effects are serviceable, some digital blood effects look better than others, but overall a good production for its budget level. So even without going into the aspect of potentially pretentious commentary on the human condition, the movie works fine just on a surface level, if you want to interpret it deeper, that's okay, there are some interesting observations sprinkled in.

Without spoiling it, the ending did not work for me, the movie should have ended 3 minutes earlier and it would have been better. Despite that, I recommend it, it's better than Circle or The Belko Experiment which had a similar setup...

Here is another film that takes the idea of Battle Royale or Hunger Games and tries to spin its own twist on things. Here the twist is running to survive, keep off the grass and don't get lapped. This premise wasn't too bad, but while the previous films I mentioned are all set in reality, this one takes a step back from reality with the people being magically transported to this running location (which still looks like an average neighbourhood location), you spend the film wondering, is it magic, is it supernatural, is it alien, do I really care? And why if the powers behind this race had such ability would they choose all the people from a small city block area rather than individuals from a variety of places? And why this area specifically? The cast are passable, and the writing definitely attempts to give depth and diversity to the characters, but there are as many bad characters as good which leaves you struggling to relate to most of them. Apparently the film was made of many years and perhaps this is why it feels a bit disjointed and lacks a cohesive flow. It's not terrible but it would definitely be very low on your watch list and there are much better films you could be seeing.

I know there are a lot of reviews on here that magnify the negative points in this film. So, to get some stuff out of the way, the acting and sets used in this film are awful. Pure terrible. Additionally, the start of the film is awfully jarring.

However, there are some really interesting ideas to be found here. I wont be giving anything away by saying that there are two deaf characters in this film. The way the film makers have used these two characters sign conversations are quite clever, I don't think I have seen an interaction like this before (but then I am fairly ignorant).

The development of the characters as individuals is also done in timed manner. I don't think there was a moment in the film where I asked myself "what about so and so...".

I am not sure that this is the right format for the material though. As I was watching, I felt that it could have been better conveyed as a mini series etc.

Essentially, if you don't mind losing an hour and a half out of your life and want to see something different, give it a watch.

i'm honestly just writing this because of the high score and 2 rave reviews obviously written by people involved with the project. i feel like i was duped into watching it. so here's an honest review: this is a terrible movie. it's poorly written, and badly acted. only exception is the deaf girl. she wasn't bad, given the material she had to work with.

it's just lazy filmmaking, seems like. says nothing about the human condition (as purported from the existing reviews), only the sophomoric insight of a film-school reject who saw one too many eli roth movies.

seriously, avoid at all costs.