Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a made-for-television movie from 1969. That movie is "In The Year 2889".
Now this movie, from what little information I looked up, is technically a remake of a movie from legendary b-movie director Roger Corman. And I haven't really covered a whole lot of remakes for this series. The only one I can recall right at the top of my head is the remake for "Rollerball". That movie, of course, really sucked, though that's besides the point. Point is, I can't really recall any other instance in which I covered a remake of another movie. I *could* be mistaken there, but I'm still sticking by that until I eventually check back my older reviews to see if I was right or not.
But anyway, setting that aside, the only thing I know about this movie is that it's set after some post-apocalyptic world after it was destroyed and only a few people are surviving at a house that's faraway on an island. And then, shit apparently goes wrong afterward. What kind of shit, I don't know of, at least at this time anyway. Now admittedly, while this doesn't sound like a new premise, I've always had a bit of an interest in checking it out for some time. I remember seeing it on YouTube that I was originally gonna check out, however, I ended up scrapping that idea when I found this movie as a DVD combo pack that features one other movie that I'll get to a little bit later on.
Now, I'm hoping this movie is gonna be worth the wait, but I won't know for sure unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "In The Year 2889".
7 minutes later
OK, I have a question here, and it's probably a stupid one, but I want to ask it anyway. So, this clearly fucked up looking guy, the one with the peeling on his face. He was scanned just a moment ago by this "grigon counter", or whatever the fuck it's called, from the old guy to show that he's obviously been contaminated by radiation. And just a moment later, the brother of the contaminated guy walks in, but he's *not* been checked for contamination! Why...? Why the hell would you not scan the other guy to see if he's been contaminated or not? That makes zero sense, guys.
8 minutes later
All right, I have another question here, and it's something that's been on my mind for a bit now. So, the old guy has been preparing this event for 10 years, in which he's been explaining about how the radiation is not affecting the few remaining survivors right now. But earlier, he said that he only has provisions which will *only* last a few months. So, my obvious question here is what are they gonna do once they're out of food? Do you just go hunt for food somewhere within the area that's not been affected by radiation? Or do you just go with what you have until you die? I'm really curious about this, guys, and I'm hoping maybe that the movie will explain that at some point.
14 minutes later
Well, guys, even though it was off-screen, thankfully, I just heard the sound of a rabbit being eaten by, well...a contaminated monster of sorts. All I can really say is that I feel really sorry for that poor rabbit.
18 minutes later
All right, this is starting to bother me ever since Joanna's Dad brought this idea up. So, his idea is that he wants his daughter to marry Steve so that they can produce children, so that it can help preserve the future of humanity. Well, what happens if any of these children end up randomly catching the radiation from the outside world? Furthermore, as I mentioned before, there's still very little provisions that our current survivors are still going through currently. What are these babies gonna do for food once they grow up to be children themselves, let alone even get to that point in their lives? I understand that I'm probably putting a little too much thought into this, however, I have something resembling a functioning brain and the people who wrote this kinda didn't.
13 minutes later
So wait, Joanna's Dad says to Steve to *not* tell her that he went through the fog to go after Tim, thus potentially putting everyone in danger of him being contaminated. Good god, this movie is just becoming stupider with each passing moment! And there's still 20 minutes left to go. I'm hoping that something interesting will happen soon, guys, but I'm not totally sure if that's gonna happen at this point or not.
The Review
OK, that was a *really* abrupt ending there. Well, whatever, the movie's finally over. So I can go ahead and shut this thing off here...OK. Well, guys, that was "In The Year 2889", and um...yeah, that kinda sucked. Mind you now, it's not truly awful or anything, as I've seen far worse movies than this thing. But it's definitely not a good movie either. It kinda ranges on being rather boring to watch.
I'll get more into that in just a second here, but first, I may as well start this review off, as I normally do, by first discussing the writing. Now again, as I've stated way early on, this movie is supposedly a remake of a Roger Corman film called "The Day The World Ended". I've never seen it, obviously, so I couldn't tell you if this thing fared better or worse than that movie did. But I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say that "The Day The World Ended" fairs far better than this thing did. As I said a moment ago, the movie ranges on being really boring. And anything resembling tension or suspense is tossed away to the wayside, because nothing much really happens in this movie to begin with. Even with our cast of characters that we are suppose to care about, even they don't carry this movie very well because all of them are about as interesting as toxic waste. Which is sorta ironic, considering this movie is taking place in a post-apocalyptic world and all. But I'll get more into the characters later once I eventually talk about them.
I do want to talk about something that bothered me as I was watching the movie. I kinda already mentioned it beforehand, but I want to go a little more in depth on it because it did not make *any* sense to me. So, John, who is Joanna's Dad in this movie and one of the main characters, came up with this strategy for 10 years just in case the world fell into Armageddon, in which he would provide enough food and fresh water for him and his daughter. And all of that, as he stated near the beginning of the movie, would only last about a few months at best. And the area itself where the house is at is protected by some stupid science in which the radiation wouldn't be affected by the river, that also somehow flows it away. It doesn't really make any sense, but honestly, I can kinda roll with that, because that's the least of this movie's problems.
What *is* the biggest problem though, for me anyway, is that, again, he prepared this event for 10 years, but was only able to provide enough provisions that would only last about a few months. So, putting aside the other survivors for a moment, what happens when those provisions run out? I would've suggested that they go hunt for some game, except the radiation is most likely affecting the animals that are trying to survive in this post-apocalyptic world as well. But then, a little later on, we get introduced to a character named Tim, who owns a ranch at the top of a cliffside. So why couldn't he just get whatever food that he had and brought it over to John's house so that they would have more provisions to stock up on? I could maybe understand not being able to produce milk or eggs from his farm animals, considering that they would obviously be affected by the radiation. But I would at least think that he bring whatever food that he did have over to John's home. Instead though, he's too busy making whiskey from the river that he shares with Jada, one of the only 2 female characters in this movie.
I guess, since I just sorta stumbled in this topic, I may as well talk about the characters in this movie. And like I said before, none of the characters in this movie are interesting or relatable in any way. They're all flat and lifeless. Which is kinda sad, because since this movie is taking place in a post-apocalyptic world, you would think maybe the movie would at least provide some decent characters in which you could care about, but no. That is not the case here. John is basically the guy in charge of providing rations to all of the survivors that reside at his house, and sets the rules and everything. His daughter, Joanna, has no personality to her whatsoever. And her love interest, Steve, is also really boring, too. Which, combined together, they're about as interesting as dried up paint. Jada is supposed to be a dancer, and her manager is Mickey, AKA her supposed love interest. And they were both on their way to LA before the nuclear bombings happened, which forced them to take shelter at John's home. Beyond that though, there's nothing interesting about them, aside from Mickey being a sick creep who has the hots for Joanna. Tim is more busy being drunk off his own whiskey, and I *think* there was suppose to be something resembling a relationship between the two, but nothing really happens with them together beyond that.
The only other character that I sorta neglected to mention is Granger, who is Steve's brother that I briefly mentioned earlier, though I didn't know his name at the time. He's the guy who was infected early on, and I'm surprised that they didn't kill this guy sooner, considering later on in the film, we find out that the only kind of food that he has any interest in is raw meat. Which most people can't normally consume anyways, however, seeing as how he's infected, he's always craving it. So he sometimes leaves the house on his own to go search for raw meat. The only time that he came close to it is when he almost eats a rabbit. But beyond that, we never really see much of him after that, aside from one scene in which he runs into some mysterious fog. And a bit of a spoiler here, he dies. Which again, I'm surprised that he wasn't killed off earlier because if the guy had some sort of obsession with raw meat and nothing else, that kinda gives me the idea that they should've killed him off a long time ago rather than let him go almost batshit crazy.
But yeah, guys, beyond that, the writing in this movie is just really stupid and poorly thought out, too. It almost makes no logical sense if you stop and think about all of the details that this movie tries to provide you. And all of the characters are flat and uninteresting, which makes for a really boring movie to boot. And as for the acting, well, honestly, most of it isn't really that good either. The only one who stood out to me the most was Neil Fletcher as John. He's the only one who sorta turned in a halfway decent showing. Which isn't really saying much, but at least he tried to work with the script that he was given. Everyone else really kinda sucked. All of their performances ranged on being mostly wooden and a little bit on the hammy side. And in some cases, I can normally enjoy both sides of those kinds of acting. But I can't do that here, because the acting in this thing is just too bland for me to even enjoy listening too. So, to sum up, the acting here mostly kinda sucks, with the exception of Neil Fletcher's halfway decent acting.
Special effects in this movie are cheap as shit. Now, to be fair, this movie was filmed on a rather low budget, And considering that this was a made-for-TV movie, you shouldn't really expect much to begin with. So, it's gonna be a little bit harder for me to criticize this part because of the low expectations I have of it being a made-for-TV film. So with all that said, the only thing I can actually comment on is the costuming on our monster that you see in this film. It's essentially just a cheap-looking mask that's made of rubber. And the claws on it's hand are also really cheap-looking, too. The design on the mask looks OK at least, so I can grant it that much. But aside from that, the costuming on this monster is really cheap, however, I'm willing to give it a slight pass, seeing as how, again, it is a made-for-TV movie that was made on a really low budget.
Camerawork here is OK at best, but the picture quality in this movie has aged like expired milk. And I'm not kidding about that either. There's a few shots in this movie where the filtering on the camera will turn red for some strange reasoning. It's really similar to what I experienced in "Moonlight Sword And Jade Lion", where the same thing happened in that movie. Now I don't know if it's because it was made-for-TV, or if that's how some movies were like when they were filmed back in the day, but it still really bothers me whenever I see this happen. Granted, it's not too big of an issue to overlook, since it only happens a few times, but it's still very noticeable. The quality on the film itself definitely could've used some cleaning up when they remastered this movie on DVD. But as far as I know, the only version of this movie that exists on DVD is the combo pack which features the other movie that I'll cover in a couple of weeks. So unfortunately, if you're expecting a Blu-ray or 4K remaster of this thing, you're probably not gonna see that happen anytime soon. Not that the movie is any good, mind you, but still, it wouldn't have hurt to have this movie clean up some of it's graininess a little bit.
Lighting here is OK for made-for-TV standards. The sound-mix here is decent. The score here is really, incredibly forgetful. I couldn't remember a single piece of music here that was in any memorable. Not even the music that played when Jada was dancing to it at one point in the movie. It's really forgetful, much like the rest of this movie's score.
So with all that said, when it comes down to it, am I able to recommend "In The Year 2889"? Not really, no. There's almost nothing about this movie that's even worth watching for, unless if you want riff on it with some friends on a bad movie night. But otherwise, guys, this movie is incredibly forgetful. I'm not gonna remember anything about this movie beyond the fact that it's really boring. And to think that I actually had some level of interest in it when I first heard about it last year. Well, it shows me that sometimes, curiosity can be a real bitch. I'm hoping the other movie on this 2-pack will be worth the purchase. But I won't know for sure until I cover it. In the meantime, I'm gonna go and watch something better. And earlier today, I noticed a video that was put out by the Cinema Snob where he covered an awesome cult movie that I reviewed myself a long time ago, which was "Chopping Mall". I'm gonna go and watch that next because I need to be reminded of something better than this movie.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you later. Peace.
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