This one passed me by without me ever even hearing about it in 2012. Given that it has mixed reviews and did quite poorly at the box-office, I suppose there is good reason for that. This was during a time when Steve Carrel was attempting to branch out into more serious roles and I think he does extremely well in this one as does his co-star Keira Knightley.
I can't say why this movie did poorly but it may have to do with the fact that during that period of time Apocalyptic films were coming at us at far too great a pace and perhaps people were kind of burned out on the whole idea. This probably wasn't the best time to release a romantic-comedy/dark-comedy about the subject matter, even though I think this one is far superior to most of the apocalyptic films that exist out there.
The main story is that there is yet another large object that is heading towards Earth and the planet has exhausted all of their options as far as stopping it is concerned. I guess Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis and the rest of the oil rig crew don't exist in this timeline.
Steve plays the role of a man named "Dodge" who has had a rather boring life including a boring marriage that once the news hits about the end of the world coming, she immediately leaves him without so much as a word. This isn't a spoiler, it is in the trailer and happens in the first 2 minutes of the movie.
Dodge doesn't really know what to do with the very limited time that he has left and he amusingly decides to carry on living his life like he did before even though most of the things that he is involved in have absolutely no purpose anymore since the global population knows the exact minute that all life on Earth will cease to be.
He goes to the gym, goes to his job, and attends parties with friends and coworkers that he doesn't want to attend. While everyone else it taking advantage of the fact that their actions no longer have consequences, Dodge carries on as though the end is definitely not nigh.
There are a ton of cameos that show that Steve has a lot of friends because as soon as some rather big name appears on screen they are almost immediately gone, never to be heard from again in the story.
The only real characters in the movie are Dodge (Carrel) and one of his neighbors in his building Penny (Knightly), who he meets completely by accident.
You don't need to have FBI levels of deduction to see where this story is headed but there are some humorous and touching twists that happen on the journey.
Dodge isn't really all that interested in Penny, or anyone else for that matter. He is kind of reeling from having what he perceives to be a "life wasted" that most people would probably only come to terms with if in the same situation of knowing exactly when not just you, but everyone is going to die.
I think they kind of downplay the amount of chaos that the world erupts into when everyone knows the news as the streets are relatively safe but I think we could all assume that the real world would become absolute chaos if this were to happen IRL.
I don't want to spoil what happens and there isn't much to spoil since it is pretty evident right from the start. I normally don't enjoy movies that are this predictable but I already had it loaded up and was in bed so I figured I would "suffer" through it. Instead of suffering I ended up really enjoying this and it was nice to see Steve, who would later go on to make many more serious films and even be nominated for an Oscar in later performances, show that he is not a one trick pony in the acting world.
Should I watch it?
I think most people will avoid watching this one for the same reason that I did in that you already know what is going to happen before you even start up the film. However, this one kind of surprised me and made me think a bit more about the human condition and how all of us are probably settling for something because we look at our own lives as this sort of infinite thing and that of course, simply isn't true.
I found it touching and wonderful and I think the world really missed out on a potential hit here because while I normally stay away from RomComs, this one was pretty great.
This film is not currently available on Netflix. If you want to watch it, I am sure you can "go sailing" and figure it out