take a breath (Now streaming on Paramount+) is a cheap post-apocalyptic sci-fi outing set in a world where oxygen is thin and characters are thin. Directed by Stephen Bristol (See you yesterday), the film keeps the setting tight and the budget even tighter, casting genre legend Milla Jovovich as an outsider who may or may not be trusted by a survivalist family led by Jennifer Hudson, who they must share that Not sure if not. their air. Sometimes small-scale sci-fi can be a systematic display of thoughtful ideas; Sometimes they rehash material we’ve already seen. Let’s find out which camp take a breath falls into
breath: Stream it or skip it?
Summary: Brooklyn, 2039. Everybody’s Dead. Well, no Everyone. A family survives on a sunlit Earth where oxygen levels have plummeted, killing plant life and most of humanity. “They” called Darius (the general) a nut for over-preparing for the apocalypse, but “they” are now all dormant pussies. And so he and his wife Maya (Hudson) and teenage daughter Zora (Quanzan Wallis) live in a cozy bunker with electricity, an airlock, a solar-powered machine that produces oxygen, lots of cans of soup, a mini greenhouse (it helps. that Maya is a botanist!) and John Coltrane – a quality selection on vinyl too. They also have oxygen tanks and masks so they can go outside the bunker if needed. The world out there is so bleached yellow and barren, you almost expect WALL-E to tap on the door asking for a cup of sugar.
The plot attempts to send Darius away for months, leaving Maya and Zora alone to bicker, and then deal with serious plot development in the form of a less-than-friendly visitor from WALL-E. There are two of them to be exact – Tess (Jovovich) and Lucas (Sam Worthington). Tess says she knew Darius from way back, and just wants to check the oxygen generator so she can fix it herself in a bunker in Philly. Children’s lives are in danger, she pleads over the intercom. Will no one think of the children?
The question here is whether Tess and Lucas can be trusted. in This The economy? Hardly! Anyone who has lived through the apocalypse knows that it makes people mad and unreasonable, more likely to kill you than help you. And while Tess seems sincere, that Lucas guy is a bit of a loose nut. They are armed, because they should be, and the same goes for Tess and Zora. And anyone who’s been around guns knows that they make people crazy and irrational, more likely to kill you than help you. Inevitably, complications arise, and whether or not we engage with any of these – the latter seems depressingly likely – we can at least conclude that the apocalypse and guns and any combinations thereof are not good. .
What movies does it remind you of?: take a breath is WALL-E gets Road In completes the siege sequence Two towersExcept four people instead of 40,000. Also, shout out for another post-apocalyptic sci-fi outing from Normal, the series Silowhich uses the same setting to create a significantly stronger and more original play.Â
Performances worth watching: Let’s recall that nine-year-old Wallis was nominated for an Oscar Cattle of the Southern Wild And move on.
Memorable dialogue: Zora delivers this doozy: “You ever heard of the Hindenburg, bitch? You shoot us, we’re all dead! One spark and the whole place is on fire!â€
Sex and Skin: no one
Our Tech: I think the main idea in take a breath out Hey, suffocation is bad It assumes that faith is already fragile even without being re-contextualized in a destroyed world. But it’s a generous reading of a film that seems content to follow clichés rather than work in or around the past. The screenplay reflects its wasteland setting, with a competent and talented cast giving little to work with, as much off-the-rack dialogue as the visuals which, while not limited in scope, are mixed by chintzy CGI. Granted, not every movie enjoys a nine-figure budget, but this dollar-store material deserves no more than dollar-store execution.
Bristol is doing the best it can with a (painfully prevalent) lack of resources. But it shows a lack of control that puts the picture into a third-act tailspin: the director seems to err on the side of amplifying the frenzy to heighten the tension. Worthington evokes his character’s hidden psychopath, eating up the scenery in a way that’s more annoying than entertaining. The bunker’s computer uses a female-voiced warning system that rarely goes off, bleating its grim countdown on increasingly frantic actions, which devolve into logic-deprived chaos during key climactic moments. For a movie that is so thematically stripped-down, we shouldn’t be confused and wondering what happened, and how and why. Just as lack of air kills a person, lack of intelligence will kill a movie.
Our Call: *gasp* leave it
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Post Stream it or skip it: ‘Breathe’ on Paramount+, the bare-bones post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie pitting Milla Jovovich vs. Jennifer Hudson appeared first decisive.