In a 9.12 piece called “Sumptuous Devastation,” I described John Hillcoat‘s The Road (which I had just seen) as “two hours of rotted, ash-covered, end-of-the-world remnants captured in ravishing, desaturated, ugly-beautiful photography with highly admirable production design. Viggo Mortensen and the kid are very good…yes, fine. But what they bring isn’t nearly enough.
“I read Cormac McCarthy‘s novel for the exquisitely plain prose, but the movie is quite unnecessary. It really and truly goes nowhere, enhances nothing, offers no poetry of any transformative value and adds nothing to the conversation. Plus it has a lousy story. You can have it. I’ll never watch The Road again. You can give me the Blu-ray and I’ll never pop it in.”
