Young Ones (2014)

In the near future, water has become scarce. Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon) is struggling to survive on his farm as other farms are failing around him. Mary Holm (Elle Fanning) and Jerome Holm (Kodi Smit-McPhee) are his two kids. His wife is living in an institution after an accident that left her disabled. He fights off bandits and scraps by on dwindling supplies. He supplies government workers as they drill for water promising a share for irrigation. Mary is love with scheming Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult) who has a plan of his own.The most compelling aspect of this movie may be the robotic mules. This movie should climax with the confrontation between Flem and Ernest. Instead, it keeps going and it changes into something different. The first half has a simplicity to its sci-fi western plot. The second half bogs down as it expands. It also doesn't help to lose Michael Shannon. There is a nice desolate world being created which falls apart.

I just watched this movie (yes a bit late to the game) and was amazed at the, well everything. It was a minimalist movie for the genre but did so much with what they had it seemed like a big budget film. The story is compelling and you actually come to feel emotions for the characters. The direction was outstanding with shots that brought you into the action while at the same time made you feel alone in the desert. Lastly the actors how this movie escaped the Academy is beyond me. Each one brought an element unique to their part of the story from Michael Shannon who was outstanding as the farmer who struggled to keep thing as sane as possible for his children and who hoped for better days with such devotion as to be palpable. To Nicholas Hoult who showed more range than any young actor has a right to. But the rest of the cast each added an element that together make this film amazing.

Its funny whenever I see movies like this I like them and dislike them-I like them because they make you appreciate what you have by seeing a world where people have really not much at all- and at the same time I dislike them because its like the film that was designed to make people in the real world feel happy with less. Neat trick. Anyway, as far as near future movies go this one is basically a good film-the acting is not bad-three cheers for that-and the plot line is also effective. Apparently the robotic donkey is a real device made in Boston. The beginning of the film reminded me vaguely of the first Star Wars movie-the farm in the desert bit I suppose. I cannot remember it ever being in cinemas but I might have just missed it completely when it came out. I bought it after watching it online for free. Worth a look for "hardcore" SF fans-others probably won't find it all that interesting. Not for kids with scenes of violence and some gore.

The plot: After a catastrophic drought, a man and his two teenaged children attempt to survive in a post-apocalyptic society.I wanted to like this more than I did. Everything about it seems like it would appeal to me. The problem is that I got a bit bored during a few slower parts of the film as I waited for the predictable plot to catch up to where I knew it was going. That's not a deal-breaker, but the scenes were telegraphed rather overtly early on, and anyone who's familiar with this sort of story can probably predict most of the film after twenty minutes. That said, it successfully avoided several annoying clichés in post-apocalyptic films: cannibals, biker gangs, raping all the female characters, and characters who do more yelling than talking. I was glad to see a post-apocalyptic film that was more concerned with characters than gratuitous elements such as these. Don't get me wrong: I love gratuitous exploitation films, but it's nice to have something a bit more restrained every now and then.I would hesitate to truly recommend this film to fans of post-apocalyptic science fiction. There's certainly much to enjoy if you're starved for good entries in that genre, but it's nowhere near as good as The Road, which was a near-masterpiece. Certainly, the mood and atmosphere of that film was missing, and if you're looking for a truly bleak and depressing story, you won't find it here. This is a more traditional Western story in which a family survives in a near-lawless frontier. If you're more a fan of Westerns than post-apocalyptic films, then I can see how you might enjoy this more than I did. Even so, I think that you'd be better served by watching old Sergio Leone films. You won't get robotic mules, but you'll get much better cinematography and pacing. I can't remember a time when I was ever bored in a Leone film.