User Reviews

Difficult to say what the point of this was. It starts of quite well but the longer it goes on, the worse it gets. Any apocalypse movie can be interesting in the beginning - when neither the audience nor the characters know what's going on. The difficult part is to make the reasons for the apocalypse make sense and to make the rest of the movie interesting.

The premise is interesting, but as soon as the characters start to put the pieces together, the movie ends abruptly. It is one of the weirdest endings I've ever seen. The characters had only solved about 80% of the mystery and it would be interesting to know what would happen next.

This whole movie feels like an intro. It feels like a pilot episode of a TV-show. Perhaps they forgot to film the rest of the movie? But I also don't think there was much more to build with after the credits rolled. Still, an enjoyable movie with a great cast - Mahershala Ali was phenomenal.

The first 75% of the movie was fantastic, it did a great job of building suspense and the acting was top notch. The ending tried to wrap up the movie way too fast and left a lot of unanswered questions that alluded to a number of suspenseful/sci-fi plot points that never came to fruition.

In the end, the entire plot was that the US was under attack by one, or potentially several hostile threats/countries, but that is never clarified. Ok, but what about the random plot points that went no where?

Cyber attack, sure that makes sense. Auto pilot cars that intentionally clog up major motor ways, that makes sense. Navigation systems disrupting freight ships and airplanes, that makes sense. But it falls apart from there.

The noise was part of the attack but we never find out what exactly it was, what was generating it, what the extent of the damage it was causing, but let's not get into that aside from it's most likely just part of a shock and awe campaign.

The deer and flamingos congregating on the property is just simply explained as "The animals know something we don't" but let's just leave it at that and not go into any more detail or explain any of it.

There's a random shed that looks at the house, and there's a bed of leaves with a body indentation where someone has been sleeping. Super creepy, is this another character that has been stalking the families? Nope, it's never explained and doesn't factor into the plot at all.

The son gets bit by an insect and his teeth start falling out the next day. Is there a plague that will wipe out civilization? Nope, they just get some random pills from a handyman and that's the end of that plot line.

Is mom dead? Probably, but let's not get into that, instead let's just have a super awkward scene where a drunk husband and wife come close to cheating on their spouses.

There's a shot of the US flag on the moon with the earth in the background, is there an alien invasion? Nope, we just threw that scene in there because why not? It might loosely represent that the US is under attack but otherwise we just really wanted this scene in the movie for no reason.

So much wasted potential. Seems like a typical Netflix movie that blew its budget on the actors and a few CGI scenes and then tried to close everything out as quickly and cheaply as possible.

I was enjoying the movie a lot, I thought it was leading somewhere and it just didn't. The way it was shot, the music, the acting. It was all great. This movie had potential to actually be something special. What a let down. The pacing of the movie was top notch, it didn't feel like 2 hours and 20 minutes. It does very well at keeping you engaged and wondering what's happening the whole time. But once you find out (kind of) what's actually happening, again, A COMPLETE let down of an ending. I wouldn't go as far to say I wouldn't recommend this movie, but keep your expectations in check while your watching. It leads you down the beautiful rainbow in hopes of a pot of gold but all you find is spoiled lucky charms.

I read other reviews that didn't like the ending or didn't see the point. Many of us are just fine if we have our screens on and can see our favorite TV show. We can block out the rest of the world no matter what is happening. We watch our own channels on our own devices. The daughter, Rose, in "Leave the World Behind" was perfectly happy leaving her family as long as she could watch her TV shows. With a treasure of DVDs at her disposal that included her favorite show "Friends", Rose was more than happy to live forever in isolation forgetting about the outside world. When Rose's brother asked her "Why do you care so much about that show anyway?", she said, "They make me happy." I thought the movie was right on point showing us where our culture was heading.

There are people who can't handle the isolation and need the human contact. There are also people who get debilitated by worrying about what is happening in the world. I know a few people who can't function because they need to check the news 24/7. I would say most people are the opposite. I think I'm in that opposite boat. If I'm honest with myself, I care about what happens in the world, but I am more than happy when I find a good Netflix show instead of worrying about it. I would much rather watch my Netflix show than get involved in politics. That's sad, but true.

The one thing I didn't quite understand was what the animals were trying to tell the family. I don't think the animals were telling them to go to the house with the bunker, so I was confused about that part. I understood that the hack was throwing off the migration patterns, but they also said the animals were trying to tell them something. We walk around our neighborhood every night, and we regularly see deer in the front yards. One night last week there were four large deer close to the sidewalk. I kept walking and I wasn't worried much they would charge me! But it got unsettling when they were several large deer up close. I can only imagine if there was an entire herd like in the movie.

I think the movie was timely. COVID accelerated our isolation with everyone living in their own realities of happiness. I recommend watching this movie and thinking about how our world is rapidly changing. How many of us would be perfectly happy living in our bunkers of our own making with our own devices watching our own shows not needing to pay attention to the outside world? The movie takes it to the extreme with bombs dropping right outside, but I thought the point was powerful. My biggest concern today was whether the Bengals would win Saturday and when the next Reacher episode will drop on Amazon Prime. I tuned out what Trump and Biden were up to today and what was happening in Israel and the rest of the world.

I can enjoy slow character-driven movies.....as long as there is a payoff for the slowness.

This movie is similar to M. Night original movies, where you as the viewer do not know anymore then the characters in the story. That was nice and refreshing. There were purposeful plot devices that kept you guessing on what was real or not. Again, pretty good so far. Several scenes could have used some editing and easily cut out 40+ minutes of filler, but still okay as long as you have a payoff.

Problem is, there is no payoff. So instead of enjoying a slow build, instead you feel as if the movie wasted your time. If the movie had a ending, I could have enjoyed it, but it didn't. The movie credits starts running and you are left with 'WTF?'. Lazy, this is one of those directors have has a good idea, but not sure how to end their project, so they leave it open-ended under the guise of 'audience interpretation'. Dumb.

Other things to note, none of the characters are likeable. The young girl is as stupid and mentally challenged as the 'Hereditary' girl, someone who should be watched 24/7 but the parents thinks it is okay to let them go out alone.

So long yet nothing happens.

So tense yet 90% of the tension comes from bizarre camera angles and strange soundtrack choices in a vain effort to distract you from the fact that this movie doing nothing.

Boring. Boring. So boring.

Too much shoe-horned exposition.

Too much wandering aimlessly too much of absolutely nothing.

It's supposed to be a deep, political exploration of what would happen to the average citizen if America were to be destabilized. And the answer is: they'd sit around and wander around and generally mope around. That's very boring. Nothing about this movie hits. Nothing about this movie hits any of the right notes.

I want my time back!

Wow, they really cranked the engagement (+tension) levels all the way up to eleven here. And for what it's worth, the source material (a novel of the same name by Rumaan Alam) feels like it carries that page-turner quality. I guess there was one major change from the novel, and that was with Myha'la Herrold's character. The ensemble truly shine, and it's good to see Julia Roberts return to doing solid work after a mediocre Ticket to Paradise. Ethan Hawke is a go-to for daddy roles like this nowadays, and he aces it, as expected. The true standout is Mahershala Ali, in a role that first makes us think he's a creepy home-invader, but then, the man is full of sophistication and good taste, ain't he? For instance, his casual revelations may sound like conspiracy theories, but he delivers them in a style that makes you want to believe. Roberts, on the other hand, is displaying all kinds of cynicism and vulnerability, and her character becomes easier to like once the surface layers are peeled off. The two kids are promising too.

For writer-director Sam Esmail, this feels like natural progression after all the work he put into Mr. Robot. The visual effects are thankfully solid, and if they'd been subpar, this film would've been half as effective. There are stretches where the protagonists are just confused and unsure what to do, given the distinct nature of the circumstances, and it's because the writing (especially, the dialogues) is strong that the film stays riveting all through 2h 20m. You can argue that the makers tried to blend too many things here, including bits of body horror (ouch, those teeth!) and dark comedy (screaming at the deer), and I think it's to their credit that it all somehow makes for a coherent, mostly thrilling ride. The ending feels rather simplistic for a film that offers various kinds of commentary, and while it made me smile, I'm not sure how I feel about it as "storyline closure".

P. S. Wasn't Kevin Bacon THE perfect choice to play the unhinged neighbor?

I'm not sure why there are so many reviews saying they don't get it. The plot was pretty obvious to me. The movie isn't about solving what is happening, it's about how would we handle chaos? Would we lose our minds, fight with each other, kill each other, help each other, give up, wait and see? Basically it showed what happened in each instance. And in the end, those who refuse to give into chaos, and instead decide let's just hunker down and watch Friends will be okay, or at the very least, won't add to the chaos. It's a message about being kinder to each other, & not turning into animals. For example, every hurricane season everyone panics, buy up all the gas, all the water, all the toilet paper. Then everyone else can't go to work, can't use water bottles for baby formula, can't wipe our bums. But had everyone stayed calm instead of turning into savages, we all would have the supplies & security we need. Instead when chaos is introduced, we turn on each other, as we already turn on each other just in our daily lives now without outside threats even involved.

The little girl knew watching Friends made her happy, so that's what she did. She went, ate a bunch of junk food & watched a show that made her happy. She didn't add to the chaos. End of story. If you need a more exciting plot than that, & you need to leave a scathing review because it wasn't in depth enough for you, perhaps the point of the movie is even more important than people realize it is.

This film will defy your expectations. If what you want is yet another linear apocalyptic disaster film, there are plenty of those to go around. Just recently there was Greenland, for example. But this film doesn't explain the larger story.

Instead what we have here is a very ground level narrative. We only know what the characters know. And just as in real life, the characters have lots of conflicting information none of which adds up to a clear and obvious accounting of what happened and why. There are lots of hints dropped throughout the film, so if you must form some kind of conclusion there's plenty there to interpret. But the point of the movie is not the larger events. It's our place within those larger events.

And that's what keeps this movie from becoming another run of the mill disaster flick. A suspense and drama will draw you in. You'll find the characters relatable in that they are real people. Flaws and all. There's suspicion, distrust, biases, selfishness... That all makes the story a little more believable. There's nothing over the top here. Rather what we have is a commentary on how we're all living in our own little bubble. But somehow we all share the sense that this world we're living in isn't real. Or at least it can't last. It's a very 2023 sentiment.

Back in 2020, we thought we felt this way but we didn't really. The perfect film for that era was Don't Look Up. That film analyzed how politics and our social inability to find consensus on things as basic as facts we're going to inhibit us from doing anything constructive toward solving any sort of collective problems. The movie's asteroid was really just a placeholder for any of a number of things we face as a species. Pandemic diseases. Climate change. Ecological disaster. You name it. We got a good look at how the distortion of truth not only inhibits but distorts and misdirects humanity's potential. Somehow we managed to make problems worse rather than better.

But in 2023, it seems worse. It's not just our collective detachment, or social media, or the politics. It's us. We see the dangers on the horizon. Almost every living generation grew up knowing that we had nuclear weapons and that these things posed an existential threat to our world. We all know that our consumption habits are unsustainable. We all virtue signal and try to act like we can make a difference. But that's all it is. An act. Somewhere deep inside of us we feel like we can't make a difference. Maybe we even know this. Not feel it, but KNOW it. And of 2023 has shown us anything, it's revealed to more and more people that maybe we're just cogs turning in a vast machine that we can't possibly understand. There are forces shaping the world that are bigger than our individual capacitys, and maybe too complex for us to collectively confront. We lack a common cause. Because we often can't even agree on what the problem is. And where we can and do see problems we only see the surface problems. We bandaid things, and we swat flies. But we're not building the solutions that we need to build a better future.

And now we can see a potential future in which we will end up stuck, with things collapsing around us and not having the slightest idea of why or how. And maybe in that moment will pop in a DVD and tune out to some old comforting sitcoms. And in that moment we'll ask ourselves: is this the real problem? Do we tune out and disengage? Or is this maybe the only solution to problems that have no real solution... To just try and find comfort where you can and hope that you come out the other end okay.

Here's hoping everyone reading this has a happy and prosperous 2024 and here's helping we all make it through to 2025.

Good movie. Plenty of suspense, good mystery and good movement throughout.

The first half is great. Strong suspense with danger in the air. A great stuck-in-a-cabin setup. The interlopers are just suspicious enough to cast doubt.

After a good opening and strong second act, it quickly breaks down. And abruptly stops with no plot resolution.

Overall it all felt very familiar. Like it's a movie I've seen before. It must have borrowed extensively from other disaster movies.

It didn't exactly energize me. I wish the second half could live up to the premise. But it felt like the first part of a trilogy. In a bad way.

Almost. The storyline was interesting. That's what had me intrigued. Especially with the cast! I mean, you can't go wrong with Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, and Kevin Bacon!!

Except, you can. You can go way wrong with such an exceptional cast. I'll say this much, because again, I don't like to tell the whole movie, it'll have you waiting for something to happen. I waited for 2 hours for something as small as an explanation or a hint of what's going on here.

The scenes changed without a clue as to what you just watched. I even thought the herd of 100 deer would at least give me some insight but no. Nothing. It was even a part where the buck emerged from the group, looking like he was ready to explain what's going on, but to my dismay, nothing.

The ending was worse. It just ended. Wham bam, thank you ma'am. Left me with more questions than your average 5 year old in a museum. Since I can't get those 2 hours back, I'll give you 2 minutes of my time. Avoid this movie like the Plague, no, like we did Covid in 2020. You've been warned.

For over 2 hours, this movie shows the first hours and days after the loss of satellite communications on Earth. The result is the collapse of all civilian life within a short time. And just before anarchy takes over, the film ends. But the little girl is happy because she has found what matters the most to her in the bunker and she is safe.

Such an event would not only occur if a hidden enemy caused these things to happen. It is not even clear whether that was the cause in the case of the film. These things can also be caused by cosmic rays, geomagnetic storms and solar flares, which occur regularly. On average, once in less than a millennium. These are known as Miyake events. The last known event that had a significant impact was the Carrington event in 1859.

The consequences of such an event would be far more threatening today than in 1859. It would throw us back to the Stone Age. Such geomagnetic storms destroy electronic circuits, semiconductors etc. This was not an issue back then since these haven't been invented yet. Nowadays it would be a huge problem. The entire planet is in the hands of semiconductors and computers.

Whatever the cause was, the idea of what it would be like if that horror were to happen today is thrilling because it's a real threat.

The actors do a great job - that's not just an empty phrase. The cinematography is great. The CGI is impressive. This movie deserves a rating above 7 stars. I am not sure what causes all of these bad reviews story-wise, and what these people do expect.

The movie's message: what has the modern life made of us? We are focused on technology and ourselves and have lost what makes us human. Perhaps a reset would help, at least in that regard.

From reading a bunch of other reviews here on IMDb, it appears a lot of folks were upset about the ending of the picture. Or some would say, lack of one. I've thought about it some, and I've come to the conclusion that if the apocalypse portrayed in the story were actually happening, one's final moments might turn out to be similar to the ones experienced by the characters in this story. In other words, here we are doing, thinking, or saying something, and then it's all over. No hint of warning, just planes dropping out of the sky and oil tankers running aground. Somewhat like those dire prognosticators of Y2K yammered about that eventually came to nothing. So, when Rose Sandford (Farrah Mackenzie) got to experience her only wish to see the last episode of "Friends", she could go out a happy camper.

From my perspective, I thought the film had quite an original premise with the Scotts returning home after they had already rented it out to the Sandfords. With the families feeling each other out, I thought it was Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) who was the insufferable one harboring a bleak view of humanity. No doubt a racist angle would be put into play, but ultimately that came to naught. The business with the flamingos and ominous deer herd was an interesting dynamic, but again, not delivering anything substantive to the story. As a prophetic vison about what might be, the script's mention of China, Korea and Iran teaming up to vow 'Death to America' is one we ought to take seriously, because real life isn't a movie, and evil does exist in the world.

The movie had me recalling the 1964 picture "The Last Man on Earth', in turn remade of a sort with 1971's "The Omega Man" and then again in 2007 with "I Am Legend". Though no vampires, zombies, or hemocytes appear in this one, the bleakness of a disastrous outcome is always palpable, and given credence with a dire newspaper headline of the White House under attack and a cityscape going up in plumes of destruction. My closing thought was that M. Night Shyamalan would have been proud.