Verdict
Summary
Scorched Earth has some cool ideas and Gina Carano is awesome but she feels wasted by not having many fight scenes and it does get a little slow at times.
Plot: The planet has suffered an environmental collapse; the air became dangerous to breathe, the water became toxic, and billions of people died. Generations later, mankind has finally re-established a rudimentary society, in an attempt to pick up the pieces that continue to blister in the sun. Attica Gage (Gina Carano) is a bounty hunter with a chance at the bounty of a lifetime: to bring down the ruthless outlaw, Elijah Jackson. Gage infiltrates Jackson’s gang, and everything is going to plan until she meets a slave girl who reminds her of her dead sister. With her loyalty to only herself now tested, Gage learns that there might be more to life than just survival.
Review: Scorched Earth is a post-apocalyptic Western where the Earth has been ravaged by storms and only a few survivors are left who trade in silver and require masks to breathe. What could be a gloomy and depressing tale is actually a lot of fun with some nice touches of humour to keep things light.
I love Gina Carano and will watch her in anything as she’s already proven herself adept at action scenes; it’s a shame there aren’t more fights in this movie which seems like a waste of her talents. The pace is actually quite slow at times too which is a surprise considering its 90 minute runtime. It was about the 30 minute mark where I nearly switched it off but I’m glad I didn’t as it picked up in the second half.
Carano is clearly enjoying playing a badass bounty hunter called Gage who poses as another outlaw in order to get close to the man who kidnapped her sister years ago. Said villain is Thomas Jackson (played by Ryan Robbins) who steals the movie with his arrogance and ruthlessness.
Considering the film’s modest budget, the visuals are impressive and the action is well done but as I said, it’s just a shame there wasn’t more of it. I would watch a sequel, as I love the character of Gage and think her story could go in some interesting directions.
There are a few entertaining one-liners and John Hannah’s gruff mentor is great to watch even if his accent does slip occasionally. I thought the concept was an interesting one but not enough excitement was brought into it to keep things moving so it drags at times.
Overall, Scorched Earth is a fun post-apocalyptic actioner and Gina Carano is great as Gage but the lack of decent fight scenes and dull pacing make it difficult to maintain interest for the full runtime.