“The journey begins with us.”

Justin’s rating: Australian accents make the end of the world sound so much more palpable

Justin’s review: I think for many of us, there are some actors who make any film they’re in an automatic watch. Tim Curry is that for me. You don’t have to tell me anything about the movie past it’s name, and I’ll be sitting on your couch with a big ol’ bowl of popcorn and waving my “TIM CURRY MY FAVOR” pennant.

What I love about him, other than his delectable voice and Grinchian grin, is that Curry never says “no” to niche genre titles. He’s a geek’s geek who’s never too good to, say, appear in some Austrialian teenie scifi adventure while sporting a Steven Seagal ponytail and chew the scenery with those white chompers of his.

In Doom Runners, it’s the future where the “eco-collapse” has happened, which means that kids sleep in hammocks now and “DTs” (Doom Troopers)* run around in impractical armor while kidnapping people at random. The DTs bring their victims to Dr Kao (Curry), who delightfully chomps on lines and wipes minds after stealing their secrets.

Brother-and-sister Adam and Jada find themselves on their own after their grandfather dies. But before pop-pop kicks the bucket, he leaves the pair a map to New Eden and a not-too-subtle suggestion that they risk their lives in the hostile environment to find it. Might as well, because warehouse living isn’t that thrilling.

They rope in a mute hulk, a psychic dog, and a rebellious rogue to their party, and five strong, head out into the unforgiving wasteland. Or as unforgiving as a Nickelodeon post-apocalyptic film can be, so the outdoors looks like someone went to a lush park to film this movie and maybe iCarly back-to-back.

They cruise away on hoverboards attached with sails while a teen bop plays on the soundtrack. Out there, they cross a vapor mine field, contend with poisonous plants, smoke out a traitor, and spend four minutes out of every 10 standing or sitting around talking about their journey instead of journeying their journey. There’s also a pretty annoying voice-over by the rebellious kid that doesn’t add much but doesn’t go away, either.

It’s honestly not that impressive or believable a setup. I kept watching for those (unfortunately) brief interludes where we got to hang out with Tim Curry as he talked about sucking down another “mind shake” and then overacts as he absorbs another victim’s personality. But that was not enough, not nearly enough, to have to endure an hour-and-a-half of a bland tween road trip.

*Of course for us older viewers, every mention of “DTs” calls to mind alcohol withdrawal symptoms, which kind of changes the tone of most of the lines that uses them.

Intermission!

• This stars Nathan Jones, who plays Rictus Erectus in Mad Max: Fury Road
• The “Great Eco-Collapse” probably gave the Weather Channel a boost in ratings
• “The After Time” is a terrible term. Try again, writers.
• Fire hands! That seems both useful and impractical at the same time.
• “The journey begins with us” stop reading the poster tagline of the film, kid
• The road sailer is the flimsiest invention I’ve ever seen
• There’s a layer of vaporized pollution… so? Doesn’t “vaporized” mean “gone?”
• How many times is she going to grab that guy’s arm and turn him around? Like a good dozen?
• Standing in front of a lone door outside with nothing around it has to be the worst guard duty job
• There is NO way that arrow had enough string to bridge that gap
• “Ohh I’d love to suck his brain dry!”
• “I’m thirsty for a mind shake!”
• “It’s going to be a mind wipe marathon when I catch up with this group.”
• Amusement park time, starring the platinum headed blonde crew