SCORCHED EARTH (2018)

SCORCHED EARTH (2018)

Tagline: Before the end of the world, she has some people to kill.

(Drama, Action, So The Future Is A Western?) [R]

In this one, we are taken to a post-apocalyptic earth where the world is essentially run by outlaws. Bounty hunter Attica Gage manages to kill someone she can now pose as to infiltrate a den of criminals responsible for killing her sister. How long can Attica keep up the charade before she goes…SCORCHED EARTH?

It should be known that at some point I would like to have watched every single movie that Kristy Swanson has ever done and every movie that Gina Carano has ever done. Not because I agree with everything Gina has to say (by the way, Kristy and I are pretty much on the same page on lots of stuff), but because I love it when someone bucks the trend to the point that it might cost them. Gina says and does what she wants and I like that she has the guts to do that because Hollywood is largely (not completely) a cesspool of robotic yes boys and girls just doing what their rich daddies want them to. To be honest, in that world, I don’t blame a lot of them because their jobs depend on them shutting up till they make enough money or get to the point where Gina got and they just don’t give a crap. 

After DEADPOOL things seemed to kind of slow down for Gina and she did a string of films that were a little lower on the budget scale including this thing. I do like that they hired the very diverse John Hannah (THE MUMMY) to play her sort of mentor “Doc” and he does a solid job in this as does Gina herself. None of this feels mailed in and we do get a good performance out of Stephanie Bennett (LEPRECHAUN: ORIGINS) who plays Melena. After that though, everyone else is just okay.

Production wise there are some decent CGI shots for a low-budget movie in this, but most of it feels very much like it was filmed in Old Tucson studios in Tucson, Arizona rather than in Canada where it was actually shot. That isn’t necessarily bad, but it presents as very small world when you are kind of expecting a grander scale for a movie called SCORCHED EARTH. It’s called SCORCHED EARTH, not SCORED REALLY SMALL WESTERN TOWN. 

As much as I like Gina, I did not like this movie. It pretty much sucked and outside of a pretty interesting beginning, this movie just drags on and on forever driving us into the sand. I wish I had something better to say, but when you have a bad script, it is really hard for even the best cast to overcome it. Back in the early 2000s, I wrote a script called “MIREYA’S FOREST” which was kind of a supernatural CLUE-type concept. I would still love to see get made into a movie but outside of a decent beginning and a crazy last act, that freakin thing would need a lot of work and a lot of punch before it would ever come across on screen as being interesting. This script has the same issue. Apocalyptic bounty hunters always sound pretty good on paper, I guess originally Sean Bean was supposed to play Attica, but instead, we got Gina. It’s got cool costume work, it’s dusty and feels very much like a full-blown western, but the dialog ruins it. The story has a lot of nothing going on and lacks any real sense of charm or intrigue. Yes, the two writers have projects out there and congrats to them, that’s more than me, but this one just doesn’t land. 

Overall this might be one of those flicks you put on during a lazy Saturday afternoon, but it’s not something I would run too even if you are a huge fan of b-movies. Even the score is rough.  

Because it is so desperately drab and a lot of it just feels like it’s going nowhere, I have to give this one a 2 out of 7 as much as I hate doing that.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF LIGHTHOUSE PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.