....but I didn't read the book.
I think doing it the other way around probably would have been better.
I was underwhelmed by director John Hillcoat's movie, although I thought Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron and all the rest were well cast and quite believable.
The Link
IMHO, plenty of other post-apocalyptic or even zombie/plague films like "Mad Max" or "Dawn of the Dead" and "28 Days Later" have given us almost everything this purposefully depressing and (for me, slow) movie offers, before now and often better.
I'll bet author Cormac McCarty's written story is a memorable telling of the bond between The Man and The Boy and the lessons each of them taught and learned, but I'll agree with one reviewer who credits this movie based on the book for having "too much tableau and too little acting."
And I suspect the descriptive wording McCarty put on-page convincingly trumps these on-screen moving pictures in conveying the intimacy between the main characters, their dismal plight, fading hope and the stark profundity of their struggle to retain their humanity.
I remember being genuinely scared as a kid by what I now see as similar plot elements in "The Wizard of Oz" and, also, how watching the original and seminal "Night of the Living Dead," at a drive-in way back in the sixties, made my otherwise willing date much too jumpy to do what we went there to do.
So, I guess, my considered recommendation is that you should read the book first and then decide about seeing this derivative movie.
And, for sure, if you come across a drive-in showing this beautifully bleak flick, park your car elsewhere and put some good music on its audio system, instead, if you and your girlfriend want to get romantic.
Your thoughts, varying or similar, are certainly welcome.
I think doing it the other way around probably would have been better.
I was underwhelmed by director John Hillcoat's movie, although I thought Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron and all the rest were well cast and quite believable.
The Link
IMHO, plenty of other post-apocalyptic or even zombie/plague films like "Mad Max" or "Dawn of the Dead" and "28 Days Later" have given us almost everything this purposefully depressing and (for me, slow) movie offers, before now and often better.
I'll bet author Cormac McCarty's written story is a memorable telling of the bond between The Man and The Boy and the lessons each of them taught and learned, but I'll agree with one reviewer who credits this movie based on the book for having "too much tableau and too little acting."
And I suspect the descriptive wording McCarty put on-page convincingly trumps these on-screen moving pictures in conveying the intimacy between the main characters, their dismal plight, fading hope and the stark profundity of their struggle to retain their humanity.
I remember being genuinely scared as a kid by what I now see as similar plot elements in "The Wizard of Oz" and, also, how watching the original and seminal "Night of the Living Dead," at a drive-in way back in the sixties, made my otherwise willing date much too jumpy to do what we went there to do.
So, I guess, my considered recommendation is that you should read the book first and then decide about seeing this derivative movie.
And, for sure, if you come across a drive-in showing this beautifully bleak flick, park your car elsewhere and put some good music on its audio system, instead, if you and your girlfriend want to get romantic.
Your thoughts, varying or similar, are certainly welcome.
