REVIEW: Carriers

As I've mentioned before I do have a soft spot for post-apocalyptic fiction. So on the surface of things a concept like this, which sees a group of survivors struggling to exist in a world where a still potent (and unnamed) virus is obliterating every man, woman and child in sight, should have been right up my alley. But its low-key release was as prophetic as one might of expected, and its quite a run of the mill film really, when by all rights it should have been much more vital and original.

The film, which no doubt would have gone straight to video if it wasn't for its star landing the part of James T. Kirk and becoming all famous, has filler written all over it. Its kin to all the PG-13 ( or 12A if your english) horror's in that its far too tame and timid to do proper justice to its premise. It hasn't got the balls to fully acknowledge the pure horror of the death of humanity, and becomes instead and end of the world wish fulfillment piece, quite similar to Zombieland, only without the comedy or the zombies. It is not helped by its characters, which in this movie's main failing really, are all slasher movie archetypes which instantly puts to bed the strong character elements the sub-genre usually provides, replacing it with a few blandly pretty faces, weak banter and stake-less violence. Pine is probably the strongest thing in the film, in that he's only annoying about half the time, but does have a couple of moments where he is OK. The film's lead (missing from the posters because of Pine's newfound celebrity) is a washout, with Lou Taylor Pucci having so little presence that you often forget that he is there, even though he is the star of the film. That's a bad sign for an actor. The women in this movie serve no real purpose, and are here to give the wandering eye something to ogle. That's not my sexism guys, its the movie's. Piper Perabo and Emily Van Camp are given no character, nothing of note to say and all in all just acting as window dressing. End of.

I hate movie's that take a good idea and use it to underwhelm. Its my most hated kind of movie. There's so much potential in the concept to tell a much more interesting story, but no.

Rating: 4/10