Scorched Earth (2018) User Reviews

Award for the Most Hilarious Premise in Winter 2017/2018

[Tweetienator · 4/10 · 3 February 2018]

Almost the whole humanity was killed by climate change and catastrophes related to those changes and after billions are dead a few guys and gals still driving cars are threatening the climate and therefore hunted down by bounty-hunters - wanted dead or alive. Well, that's a well-dumb-crafted premise I must admit :D

What more to say!? Movie is so so but only if you are a BIG-time fan of the (pos)apocalyptic genre. No new The Road, The Book of Eli or Mad Max etc. here. Tastes like a C-Western, good enough to kill some spare time with nothing else to do.

Only for die-hard fans of the genre who must watch 'em all.

Gina what's happened?

[phillip-henry · 5/10 · 6 March 2018]

This is a poor movie, that should be on in the background whilst you do something else, you shouldn't put any time aside to actually watch this, I like Gina and she had great potential to become an action star so why get involved in his drivel. Also, just a small point about the costume designers, one of the premises in the movie is the toxic atmosphere and the reliability on masks and silver?? None of the masks had filters on them which really bugged me, do some research people, masks need filters...

Poor Gina is being brought down

[mts-78680 · 3/10 · 6 March 2018]

I just finish giving Gina Carano good reviews in Heist and now they put her in this trash. Bad script and a waste of her fighting skill and little chance to show acting. Be prepared for a dud.

Neutrally ok.

[collinsburns57 · 5/10 · 7 February 2018]

Watchable, giving the plots partly similar to both Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" and "Pale Rider" with a bit of Mad Maxish's enemy wasteland cars. Though none of the editing scene to scene were irritating throughout. The actors are average but not imposing enough with the exception of Gina's acting, she is certainly suited for more kick-ass heroine roles in movieland.

B for beige.....

[s3276169 · 5/10 · 14 February 2018]

B for beige applies to a good number of second tier films and Scorched Earth is no exception.

I must say I was surprised to see the talented John Hannah in this science fiction Western. His presence was a welcome addition, however, that said, it is still not enough to save this production from mediocrity.

Pretty much everything found in Scorched Earth has been done before in one form or other. That in itself is no sin. Where it falls down is in its inability to cash in, offering up pedestrian narrative and no real breath of acting performances. The action scenes do not stand out in a meaningful way either. Its strictly by the numbers stuff, which fails to impress.

All in all a rather "ho hum" affair that's a marginal watch at best. Five out of ten from me.

When Sean Bean turns you down,you know you have a bad script

[Eddie_weinbauer · 1/10 · 10 February 2018]

This script is so bad,it makes American Ninja look oscar worthy. You can clearly see why Sean Bean turned this down. It comes off as a really bad rip off,from Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider.

The biggest problem is the bad script,the horrible acting.It has clearly all the signs of a Western,only it has been pushforward in the modern day of age.Added a dose of doomsday and end of the world.

GIna doesn't even look like she is trying to act,but then again,neither does the rest. The story is: that the world has been devastated by man made disasters,caused by global warming.And that everyone who drives a vehicle based on combustion engine.Which uses gasoline and spew exhaust, is considered an outlaw, and are thereby by hunted by bounty hunters.

The problem is,there's no explanation as to where the government get data/information about who drives what,and where. Nor how they communicate with the local law offices, around the wastelands. There is some talk about how they drop by every now and again.To leave silver and water purification tablets,which work as the payment for the bounty hunters. But nothing,bout how they get from A to B. There are Horses as transportation,but it doesn't seem like everyone has them. Which coincidentally is why this movie doesn't work. Neither as a western nor as a mad max movie .

Gina was super great in haywire,but this..This is below her level. Oh GIna if you needed money that bad,why didn't you just pose for playboy.I',m sure they would have paid a lot more.

Scorched Script

[tedg · 25 January 2019]

Well, it seems that all women on a path to stardom have to go through this, a cheap revenge movie. I think this actress has a future, and I suppose she knew that this would be a risk. The movie itself is unremarkable. What is mildly interesting is the setup. The movie wants to be a western, but it gets there by a strange setup.

An event in the future creates a Mad Max environment, that just happens to have Western sets, produce cowboy guns and cowboy-like dynamics and costumes, and get this, a silver mine with old fashioned gear and dynamite. The only difference is an air pollution that requires the bad guys to wear filter masks that resemble the bandanas of original movie westerns.

Why? What is gained by giving a familiar setting by such a strained setup? Let's assume it was designed and the intent was to make the story we see more real by contrasting to the setup which is goofy and fakey.

And you know, it works, sort of -- making this seem less terrible than it is.

You can do something better with your time.

Zena meets a B style mad max

[jezustolemyboat · 4/10 · 20 May 2018]

I'm up for most anything but this is literally Zena the warrior princess meets a B version of mad max...it's painful

Oh Dear. Do they really still make movies like this?

[dubwize · 1/10 · 3 February 2018]

This is 2018. To sit through this felt like I was back in the 1980's. If it was made back then it would have been a great movie, however this is the 21st century and movies need more than over extended low grade long winded dialogue scenes and cheesy acting. As Megatron from Futurama says: "That was so terrible I think it gave me cancer."

Ok Western

[rhinestonelife · 6/10 · 12 November 2019]

I like GC and will try any movie she's in. This one combines some of my favorite genres: action, apocalypse/dystopia, revenge. It's nice to see a female action hero like her that can fight and also resembles a real human woman that can take on a 6'-5" man and throw him across a room but still look beautiful doing that. I think the plot was thin, and some of the costuming was distracting. But generally an interesting take on the loner revenge western and a good vehicle for Carano's action star skills.

Scorched Bank Account, more like.

[deathlightdb · 1/10 · 9 February 2018]

When you walk into this, you get the feel that you're going to be watching some pretty good over-the-top camp. But you don't get the elements of good camp here. It sits squarely and firmly in that awkward place, where they either needed to improve the drama, and make this a serious film about global warming, or push it further, and give us some humor and outlandish action. You get neither of those things; just badly choreographed fist fights.

With the exception of Jackson, who might have some acting chops (he actually emoted! gasp!), the acting is tediously mediocre. I wouldn't let the inclusion of most of these actors deter me from future films, but if they weren't in this movie just for the paycheck, and doing their bare minimum, they need to find new careers or ramp up their lessons. And it's just not bad enough to loop around back to so-bad-it's-good. It feels like a cheap made-for-TV, late night slot time Syfy filler flick.

The props, I'll admit, are lovely. But they should have taken 75% of the prop budget and put it into writing and casting instead. I made it all the way through the movie, I'll grant it that, and maybe a single star isn't really warranted. But I feel like if you're going to be bad, be gloriously bad. Don't be this painfully forgettable mishmash of nothing impressive at all.

Gina needs more good scripts and bigger budgets.

[sullyfaucher · 10/10 · 2 February 2018]

Gage is a bounty hunter in the future where silver powder for breathing masks and water tablets are the commodities needed to sustain life. John Hannah plays a former hunter now a doctor due to injury. They have good chemistry and are even a bit funny. The action is great as Gina kicks ass everywhere she goes. Her sister was taken when Gage was younger and has nightmares about the incident so that when she goes after the guy who is the largest bounty, she finds out that he is the one who took her sister. The acting is good, all are believable and give good performances. I'd never seen any trailers and was surprised when I found this one and was not disappointed. It won't win any Oscars but was a good watch. I gave it a ten because at 3.7 of a rating, I felt it was unfair. Gina may be an ex MMA fighter but she's developed into a pretty good actress. I agree with the other reviewer that Gina needs better scripts and bigger budgets.

Entertaining Escapism

[TRussellMorris · 7/10 · 28 December 2020]

As we all know, anyone who trolls IMDB reviews and playing around with our collection. Many "Elitists" have a great deal of fun being typical Cinema Karens as I enjoy calling them, wouldn't know a run of the mill good time escapist movie if they starred in it themselves...lmao. It's not Citizen Kane, nor is it suppose to be. It's a mid budget action flick, and should be judged accordingly, I enjoyed it very much considering it lacked many of the qualities that SHOULD be required for a low (Below 5) rating, The acting was good, the story and premise was interesting, Gina has come a long way in her ability to appear comfortable on the screen now. She was great in this film, as were the other actors. My usual complaints are no different here than another of this type of film...that being "I wish they had more money to flesh out the effects and story". In the end I judge such films by how good they were able to carry on without a big budget to tell the story...and on that note this one did quite well.

I enjoyed it to the end, it was a decent use of my entertaining hours, kept me engaged, and did not distract me with bad acting or effects. (Personally I'd rather a film team forgo a desired special effect than make a bad or cheesy one because they could not afford to make it as they envisioned). I have enjoyed Gina in Haywire, In the Blood and Extraction, and she has gotten more and more comfortable as an actress over the years. This film at worst could be given a 6 and at best an 8 according to your personal attachment (we all have our "things" that move us or attract us in a film, from actor, to story, to effects, certain scenes, or certain premises, or something even more obscure). This gets a solid 7 from me, I liked the premise and it gave food for fantasy, as a film should. If you're a film lover, or action film lover, there's really nothing too bad about this film and certainly worth being part of your Film collection.

Average rather than great

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 8 December 2018]

SCORCHED EARTH is another B-movie action flick. The setting is a science fiction one, with a small cast of characters struggling to survive in a derelict world following an unspecified apocalypse, but the story and trappings are straight from a western. Gina Carano plays a bounty hunter on the trail of some very bad men, but for a large chunk of the running time she goes undercover and works WITH them to achieve her aims. Truth be told, the story isn't up to much and neither is Carano's acting; the only likeable performance comes from the reliable John Hannah, cast as the grizzled old-timer. The film is punctuated by moments of violence which are rather bloody, but the end result is average rather than great.

Bad

[nancyldraper · 3/10 · 4 August 2019]

Nothing much to redeem this. Production quality is really poor. Lead actress has only one tone. Even two good actors like John Hannah or Ryan Robbins couldn't save this badly written, badly directed, badly produced movie. I give it a 4 (bad) out of 10. {Apocalyptic Western}

These are two hours of my life I am not getting back.

[MissTuesday · 2/10 · 26 February 2018]

I have to say that I started this film figuring already in advance that it would be the perfect kind of film to eat in front of (meaning I wouldn't need to pay much attention as I ate serenely). Well hell. I was so right I actually didn't need to look up from my pasta. Or from my phone. Or from playing with the cat. It's too bad, the idea could have been funny, like in the film "Bounty Killer" except here it just ends up feeling like a cheap try (really, everyone is dying of poison air and water and the 'authorities' are worried about people driving cars? seriously?). Maybe I missed the big picture, I'm sorry, I got lost in the bad acting, bad costumes and bad special effects (no, let's be honest: there weren't any). Seriously speaking though, the main character was probably written to be an 'anti-hero' (what a shocker, it seems like everyone is following that trend) except that the writers don't seem to have looked up the definition. An anti-hero doesn't lack all morals, they simply go about their world saving in an obscure, unconventional way usually motivated by a dark past. Ok, so they got the dark past somewhat covered but the rest was just rush-write bullcrap. One moment she's this big bad, unemotional killer who doesn't care for anyone but herself and the next she's crying out "Nooooooooo!" to the ditzy young blond whom she's just met and who (litteraly ten minutes ago) just turned on her and got her beaten almost to death? Here is my final words for this film: "Whyyyyyy?"

Horrible terrible movie

[edwinchoy · 1/10 · 13 March 2018]

Please start to create the minus -10 . Low cheap budget movie, no actors, dialogue by force, no production, no director, this is a cheap low budget movie made by a bunch of neighbors in California, no story no history, nothing, no FX nothing, really terrible movie no waste your time download this horrible terrible movie. For sure the good comments are the families and neighbors of the kids and the poor producer and director. This people and his director must be ban to produce or make another domestic VHS home movie.No real story, bad acting. Waste of time

Canada has some free time to make things like this.

[sign1in · 4/10 · 10 March 2021]

Gina was a good choice to replace Sean in this, he probably had some GOT reshoots to do. The laws of physics just don't seem to exist in some writer's rooms, like how can a motor vehicle work if there isn't enough air? sure are quite a few TREES that could be filtering some air. But yes, this movie is bad, but if you are a Gina fan, see how she got her start, okay, have 96 minutes to kill, not to bad, scenic British Columbia isn't too bad either. Predictable plot, she catches bad guys, one of those bad guys rats her out to the Big Bad, instead of immediately killing her...."Oh wait, I have a better idea", lets her get lose, she makes it to the Medical Montage, survives, then returns to beat the Big Bad who killed her sister....then saves the doc at the end.

This was a swing and a miss...

[paul_haakonsen · 4/10 · 9 June 2019]

I didn't really know what I was walking into when I sat down to watch the 2018 movie "Scorched Earth". I was given the chance to watch it, and given the fact that I hadn't seen it before or even heard about it, of course I wanted to watch it.

Well, while the production level of the movie was good, and the acting performances were good, and the costumes were good, then the whole concept of the state of the world and the fact that people lived like in the mid-1800s was just something that didn't make much sense, and it really served more of an anchor dragging the movie down past mediocrity than it served as something to entice the audience and promote the enjoyment of the movie. I must admit that I didn't buy into the concept of the movie at all, and thus it was really hard to take the movie serious most of the times.

The whole post apocalyptic feel that the movie was supposed to have was just a massive swing and a miss, and it didn't even pass as being believable, not even to a blind person.

However, the acting performances managed to salvage what would otherwise have been a walkout after half the movie. So I stayed to finish watching "Scorched Earth".

I was mildly entertained by the movie, given the action that the movie managed to produce. But director Peter Howitt seemed to be in over his head here with the script that was written by Kevin Leeson and Bobby Mort.

"Scorched Earth" was a movie that came and went without as much as making a dent or even the tiniest of noises. I managed to sit through it, but I bet it will be obliterated from my memory come the end of next week. Is this a movie that warrants more then a single viewing? No. Not even by a long shot.

Good 'B' Movie

[stevendbeard · 6/10 · 3 February 2018]

I saw "Scorched Earth", starring Gina Carano-Deadpool, Fast & Furious 6; John Hannah-Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D._tv, The Brendan Frasier Mummy movies; Ryan Robbins-Van Helsing_tv, Falling Skies_tv and Dean S. Jagger-Game of Thrones_tv, Travellers. This is a 'B' movie-that was made in 2016, thank you credits-about a post apocalyptic future that looks like a cross between a western and Mad Max. Gina plays a bounty hunter that likes to ride a horse and drag her catches behind her in a coffin while Ryan is the bounty that likes to drive vehicles and swing a sword around in the air. There are some vehicles with gun turrets mounted on top. Dean is Ryan's right hand enforcer and John is Gina's friend and he also helped train her. John is also a doctor, which comes in handy when Gina gets beat up. Gina also has a past connection to John, which 'Makes this personal'. As you might guess, there's not much new here, but if you are a Gina fan-I am and have been since Haywire-you might enjoy it. It's rated "R" for violence and language and has a running time of 1 hour & 36 minutes. I would buy it on DVD-I'm a Gina fan, remember?-but if you are not, it would be alright as a rental.

Straight to DVD for a reason.

[BA_Harrison · 4/10 · 19 January 2019]

Gina Carano: she's sexy, she's got screen presence, she has a couple of major blockbusters under her belt, and she could kick my butt. So why is she wasting her formidable talent in forgettable low-rent rubbish like this post-apocalyptic western from the director of Johnny English, of all people?

Carano, dressed head to toe in unflattering 'Mad Max meets The Man With No Name' garb, plays bounty hunter Attica Gage, who poses as criminal Chavo (Luvia Petersen) in order to infiltrate the gang led by Thomas Jackson (Ryan Robbins), the man who killed her sister.

Not only is this highly derivative stuff, but we soon lose all sympathy with Carano's character when she shoots a sheriff in cold blood (to protect her real identity from Jackson) and helps attack a group of innocent pilgrims to prove her loyalty to the villains (blowing up the occupant of an armoured vehicle). If we're supposed to care about Gage, this isn't the way to go about it.

Scottish actor John Hannah plays an ex-bounty hunter turned doctor and doesn't exactly nail the American accent.

4/10, just for Gina.

I am a big fan of post apocalypse and this movie is awesome

[ukrainian-02916 · 10/10 · 25 March 2018]

Many people there talking about cheapness and low budget but I did watch the whole film and didn't notice any cheapness. Quite the opposite I saw the interesteed scenario and the memorable characters. I feel sadness when people write bad about this film. Maybe people prefer the other kind of films that I don't prefer. But by their's low ratings of this film people like me will never see the sequel.

Seen Quick and the Dead? You know the entire story line for this film already.

[mikeallen21 · 6/10 · 21 April 2020]

But........ Gina Carano carries it and it's still pretty good! EVERY single thing is copied straight from the 1995 western. They did make it in the future and they have gas mask on 1/4 of the time, but the rest is straight a western with all the same characters. Still pretty fun to watch.

Mediocre

[Easygoer10 · 5/10 · 3 April 2019]

If your a Gina Carano fan, by all means see this. Otherwise, besides John Hannah, you have a slew of actors from the "Vancouver Group" of actors (as I call them), tops in this film being Ryan Robbins. There are about half a dozen from this Canadian based group of actors; many of whom come from one of the "Stargate" TV series ("SG1, "Atlantis" & "Universe"). They are ubiquitous, excepting John Hannah, who delivered a stunning eulogy (by W.H. Auden) in the 1994 smash hit from director Mike Newell, "Four Weddings and a Funeral", which only 7 years later had a tragic ending for the adirable actress in it, Charlotte Campbell. She died from a severe asthma attack at age 33. Back to this film, I gave it a 5; without Ms. Carano, I wouldn't watch it.

B movie as in Boring. Uninspired

[carrychris · 4/10 · 27 September 2020]

This low budget flick steals ideas and scenes from other far superior films. A poor feeble attempt at a post apocalyptic western with an environmental message. Uninspired acting as if they are just going through the motions expect for Gina Carano as the main role as a bounty hunter BARLEY saves this from a scrap heap rating of 3 or below Gina deserved better than this and so do the viewers.