The Last Man

I totally enjoyed the resourcefulness and cleverly successful writing and casting of this film. I suppose those words imply the appearance of a 'low budget' film -- but I will swing it in the other direction as the disappearance of a 'low budget' film into one that delivered an expertly crafted experience to the viewer.

My only complaint, if I am entitled one, would be the abrupt ending, as if one simply disconnected a video player before the ending.

But then, that was the point.

Banal, unfunny musing on post-apocalyptic schlephood, brightened only by the appearance of the always-photogenic Jeri Ryan. Slick production value can't disguise the trite premise. If you were the last man on earth and this was the last movie, you might take up solitaire.

For those people who have said "what an original movie"......NO! I saw the trailer and thought it looks like one of my faves (THE QUIET EARTH) and gave it a chance - what with my love for apocalyptic tales. Boring....unfunny....a really poor remake of a truly original, thought-provoking work of brilliance from New Zealand. I felt sorry for Jeri Ryan..... Spare yourself the boredom....rent THE QUIET EARTH if you like the premise, trust me it will be better than renting THE LAST MAN.

The movie could have gone the way of cutesiness or played up the drama of the situation too much, or pulled on our heart strings, but it didn't.

Another commenter has said you might be offended if you are a "fat balding dufus", but this movie is about so much more than that. To say that, however, is to oversimplify the situation. This movie does justice to real human emotion. When he is the last man, she knows it will be hard, but tries to make things work. She seems irrational at times but ultimately is very rational. She is even willing to overlook the superficial faults of the first man when the second comes along.

Ultimately, it wasn't that he was a fat balding grad student and "rafael" was so much more attractive that caused her to make the decision she did. It was the grad student's obsessions and inability to deal with her as anything but a sex object that ultimately drove her away from him. Near the end, he almost sees himself for who he truly is, and even begins to speak it (comparing his situation to a saying of the Indian tribe he is obsessed with), but conveniently has forgotten the rest of the old saying, and misses realizing that their wisdom has a saying to describe just what he is. Instead, he blames others for his own fault.

I think the writers did an excellent job of being fair to all the characters here. Nobody in this movie ended up with anything less than they deserved, and they each had a chance to show who they really were. Even the "fat, balding dufus" had a chance to shine - he just passed it up out of jealousy and spite.

After wasting 2 hours of my life watching this movie on late night television, I went back and reread some of the IMDb material, to remind myself of why I watched it in the first place. In hindsight, the only thing that I can think of is that the genre generally appeals to me. But this movie was a total waste of effort. It fails on every level, and to see that it's described on IMDb as a comedy really leaves me at a loss. I don't recall more than a couple of chuckles. There are more laughs in any episode of Law and Order than in The Last Man. Seriously.

Too much of the characters' interaction just didn't seem to me to have any foundation, and was therefore very unlikely/unbelievable.

If it hadn't been for the almost-gratuitous bikini shots, well, what can I say? Avoid this movie like the plague. Or tape it and just fast forward to the bikini shots. Do not spend even $1 to rent it though.