This movie just came by on the dish and I had to see it. Like others I'm a big fan of the post-apocalyptic genre and this movie treated that concept both with ineptitude and with some competence. Some of this is due to the weak story and others are due to the horrible acting and characterization.
We meet "Shakespeare" who is travelling from rebuilt town to rebuilt town after nuclear war has apparently destroyed the country and the government. From seeing this movie for about 1.5 hours and listening to Costner drawl such idiotic lines as "You're really weird!" and "Things are getting better... they're getting better every day" we are apparently supposed to understand that Costner's character is a slow and unintelligent character, yet he is somehow able to cajole the towns' citizens into believing in his story. I have yet to read the novel but I suppose the author was trying to get across that his character is a stupid dullard who inadvertently saves the new world, but Costner's inconsistent acting and the unbelievable way in which the citizens take his story as gospel (President Starky?) just falls right on the floor.
As for the story, how are we to believe that a man, through self-help books and affected speech, is able to lead a marauding bunch of kidnapped men into looting, raping, and killing their own people? I had thought beforehand that this story would have been a legitimate post-apocalyptic epic, since you'd think that when a country was destroyed you'd have enough problems rebuilding the nation and re-establishing communications. Instead, we are faced with a pathetic story about an unjust paramilitary leader who needs to get his clock cleaned and can't perform in the bedroom (which is also apparently another source of his anger). I thought for a moment I was watching Conan the Barbarian the way the army attacks and destroys rebuilt communities, with Bethlehem sitting like a king getting offered treasures in return for his clemency. How pathetic!
I was hoping for a good post-apocalyptic epic, but it turned into another Dances With Wolves with a cheapened plot based on a recycled insane-bad-guy-tries-to-get-rich story we've seen countless times before. "The Road Warrior" gave good reason for the insanity. "The Postman" just couldn't.
On the bright side, the ideas and mechanisms of a rebuilt nation are very interesting and could have carried the movie without any need for marauding hun-like armies. The Hoover dam, the complete lack of working automobiles, the talk of illnesses caused by the nuclear holocaust, more talk about promised lands on the other side of the mountains, perhaps even finally communicating with the rest of the rebuilt nation, would have made this a fine movie. Instead we are left with an expensive remake of Mad Max, complete with cheap bad guys whom the author and director think unwashed movie-going masses need in every movie. Apparently, this is because the hardship of the new world isn't enough of an antagonist, and movie-goers wouldn't be able to accept that as enough of a challenge.
If you enjoy post-apocalyptic epic films, you will be sorely disappointed in this film's shallowness, lack of characterization, and unbelievable antagonist. If it comes by on the dish, be sure to watch it. But don't even think of paying real money for this.
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