I just got out of a 9 am screening of John Hillcoat‘s The Road. It’s now 11:05 with another movie — I Am Love — about to begin at 11:30 so I have ten minutes to review The Road. And I’m not going to make it. Ugly-beautiful photography and highly admirable production design — two hours of rotted, ash-covered, end-of-the-world remnants captured in ravishing desaturated color — and who needs it? Okay, 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 beautiful prose, but the movie is quite unnecessary. It really and truly goes nowhere, enhances nothing, offers no poetry of any lasting 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.