Last Sentinel

Last Sentinel is a solid B-movie entry to the post-apocalyptic genre - but only if you are interested rather in story than in action only. Last Sentinel does not provide much action, nor is the story or the scenario that "new" but the execution is well done and I like the cast and their job done. So if you dig movies a la Air (Norman Reedus), The Divide (2012), 10 Cloverfield Lane, I Am Mother and the like, this one may provide solid entertainment time to you - all those movies have in common: a small group of people are confined to a place and got to fight for survival and against their own nature and angst.

Firstly the earth has had no glacial, mountaintop or polar ice whatsoever, none, for 90% of its history. Including the geologically incredibly recent conditions before the current ice age. Secondly if all the ice and snow in the world melted, every ounce of it, se levels would go up less than 70 meters. 90% of the current dry and arable landmass of earth would still be here. Nothing can make just "two continents" except for continental drift creating amalgamations and super continents, and that will be over tens of millions of years, and there would be roughly the same dry land and sea covered ratio.

I just mention that because a couple of the people involved in the making of this have bizarrely claimed the set up of two small remaining patches of dry land is a "warning" due to climate change, when that is absurd.

The general human premise, of an distant rare and isolated military or colonial outpost or outposts, though would be a better premise and has served a lot of good literature. Greek poet Constantine Cavafy long form poem served as inspiration for the novel "Tartar Steppe" and the recent "Waiting for the Barbarians" with Johnny Depp, Mark Rylance and Robert Pattinson.

Those are good treatments of this idea. This dumbed down "Last Sentinel" is just mind numbingly bad. The plot twists become tedious, and in fact are so telegraphed as to be cringe. No one in the film can act. And you will be checking your watch every five minutes as more and more boring and pointless filler plods by.

3/10.

Although the few actors and locations are very good for what seems a low budget movie, the pacing and tension works very well at the start, and the developments are smooth enough to carry the film for a while... the movie lasts two hours for a plot that is not particularly worth the wait, considering it doesn't stick the landing with its disappointing ending. The best compliment I can give it : it's not particularly bad or annoying at any point (see Interceptor for comparison purposes). But there's a lack of cohesion, specially with the message (if there even is one).. a lack of action, emotion, satisfaction or anything to hang on to.

According to this post-apocalyptic film, most of the world will be submerged by the year 2063. There are only two continents left, and they are at war. It makes no difference to the film, though, because we don't see any of it.

Smack bang in the middle of the two remaining continents is a military outlook, or sentinel, and is occupied by four soldiers. There's Cassidy (Kate Bosworth), Sullivan (Lucien Laviscount), Baines (Martin McCann), and Hendrichs (Thomas Kretschmann). Cassidy and Sullivan are romantically involved, and Hendrichs is a Sergeant with an attitude, while Baines is the guy who makes sure everything functions.

With food supplies running low, no communication from the outside world, and the base starting to tilt, they will have no option than to evacuate shortly. One day, a mysterious ship - thought to be the relief - appears, but there is no sign of life. This very ship would become the cause of rising tension between the soldiers, tearing them apart.

The film is entirely set on the sentinel, with only four characters. The 116 minute runtime did feel a bit too long. There are a few twists towards the end. In general this wasn't a bad watch and the character development was interesting, but I'm just not sure I'm going to remember this over time - especially with its ending...

Interestingly, cassettes were reintroduced again this year (2023), and according to the film cassettes will still be around in 2063, as the characters are shown listening to cassettes and not digital media. This remains to be seen, I guess...

I've been told that I'm impatient and I have... oh look, something shiny! A short attention span. And that's probably why I can't stand slowly paced films, especially when they are almost two hours long. But at least 40 mins into this film, I finally realized this was one of those very slowly paced films, but I kept wanting to watch.

The reason I found myself glued to the screen was the great directing by Tanel Toom, the excellent cinematography, the spot-on score, and the convincing performances by all the cast. All of that combined with a very intriguing screenplay, made the pacing bearable and time started to fly, as much was happening from scene to scene, so that the suspense and tension was constant, and I was hooked and curious as to what would happen next.

Up until the last half hour, I was also really impressed with Malachi Smyth's screenplay, as he kept giving only the right amount of bits of information about his four characters, their environment and their situation. I was excited to see how this film would resolve and end. Then in the last half hour of the film, it's like a fifth grade drama class stepped in and completed the screenplay instead of Smyth.

The film built-up great foundations, but ultimately it closes off with too little in the plot department, when the film's world gives ample options and opportunities to close-out in grandeur. Everything in the last half hour became convoluted, previous questions were never answered, especially the big one - what exactly was that round device and what's it supposed to do? Then the story devolves with an inane climactic twist riddled with plot holes that falls flat, made little sense with rational thought, and took away all the build-up and suspense I had in the first two acts. What a huge let down, and a waste of starting to watch this film, only to invest all that time for a ridiculous and nonsense ending. Writing doesn't get much lazier than that. It's like ordering a banana split supreme, waiting as they make it, and being handed a sour grape instead.

That's a real shame, because this was a visually stunning film, well shot, directed and performed, especially considering the small budget and fixed sets and location. It's a generous 6/10, all for the film's esthetics and performances, but could've easily been an 8/10 had the ending not been so lazily written, convoluted and unsatisfying.