After the Dawn

After sitting through the first five minutes of this sad waste of catering, you'll know exactly how the producer pitch meeting went:

"Shelby, baby, it's a no-brainer. It's Cormack McCarthy's 'The Road,' but with zombies. And we have a woman kicking zombie ass."

"Zombie's schmombies. Just make sure there's a kid. I'm not paying for hotels, so no cast or crew from outside of Wisconsin. And gimme 90 minutes or I'm puttin' you on wrestlin' pictures. Morty, send the next clowns in."

And lucky us, we get to dine on a smorgasbord of left-over cinematic entrails from all-to-familiar end-of-the-world movies. At the same time, we get to scratch our heads over riddles such as:

• Why does Cassie - played by an American actress, and presumably American because her brother (in flashbacks) is American - have a British accent?

• How is Cassie able to fight off fast-moving undead without ninja powers?

• How is it that in a post-apocalyptic world, where food is scarce, everyone - from zombies to the orphan kid - look like they've had IVs of extra-lardy gravy in their arms for the last six years?

Sadly, these questions must stay on hold, as we listen to Cassie's over-wrought internal monologue - which is no substitute for the spare, bleak words we hear from Viggo Mortenson in The Road. It's like we're being subjected to the diary kept for her therapy sessions. Meantime, the only dialog comes from the occasional "quirky" characters in the post-apocalyptic landscape, as well as the Boy's wooden delivery of pseudo-profundities well beyond his purported years.

I'd like to have enjoyed the awfulness of this movie - because it truly is a awful - but the utterly lazy film-making not only suck ideas from better film makers, but also the fun out of the viewing.