3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Worldbreaker

2025, Brad Anderson (The Machinist) -- download

I recall that when The Machinist came out, Anderson was being lauded as The Next Big Thing. He had just come off the moderately successful, but cult favourite (and on our horror fav list as well) Session 9, but had actually done a few lesser known flicks before that. Nothing really notable grew out of that acclaim, which is really not that very kind of me, as he went on to be one of those hard working, constantly producing directors that I usually sing about. He even did a handful of episodes of one of my favourite shows of all time, Fringe.

This is all a preamble to say that this post-apocalypse movie is well done, actually has vision but ... it will not be remembered, by anyone for anything.

Harsh. Also, "well done" may be too strong as well. Competent.

There is the familiar world building -- people have Gone Too Far and the world has responded by opening The Stitch, basically big cracks in the earth that release creepy-crawly monsters, the Breakers. The monsters are hard to kill, decapitation being the only quick way -- bullets just slow them down, barely. Not only are they killing machines, but their wounds create other monsters, the Hybrids, hive-mind creatures that need to have their brains "smushed" to stop them -- a decapitated Hybrid can still attack. Men turn quicker than women and the movie has some sloppily done commentary that will have some sectors of our society just frothing at the mouth -- the movie literally uses the term not all men.

The plot centers around Willa (Billie Boullet, The Worst Witch), her Dad (Luke Evans, Dracula Untold) and her Mom (Milla Jovovich, Resident Evil). After an opening sequence where they are forced to abandon a fortified settlement, Willa and Dad are separated from other survivors and they escape to an isolated island where Dad begins to train Willa on survival, combat and sword play. And through it all, Willa is fed on stories -- stories of the old world, how Mom and Dad met, and tales of legendary figure Kodiak, a giant of a man, who "slew 100 breakers with one swipe of his axe." It should also be noted that Mom is the leader of these people, a warrior and tactician, a "real" warrior against the mythical male figure of Kodiak -- but she's barely in the movie.

Movies like this, and I know I watch a lot of them, are generally theme-lite, monster & action focused with trauma as characterization. This is no different, but Anderson is trying for something a little different. His use of story telling, myths & legends, is poignant and better put to use than other PoAp stories generally use it (most only use the "shadowy grey-moral-ed warrior comes out of the badlands") but it should have gone all in, instead of muddying the waters with all the usual trappings of these movies. There are passing hints of how Mom is the real mythical figure, and that Dad might have been Kodiak, but the latter couldn't hold any water, but for ego, and while that might have been a more interesting element (that men create male centered myths to inflate their own egos) Dad is never played as that kind of character; he is just a wounded man who played a support role while his wife did the real dirty work. Again, the movie is competent in what it does, but it always felt like it wanted to say more but ... didn't.