Afterburn
After spending more than 15 years in development hell, this post-apocalyptic action flick finally sees the light of day. Set a decade after the world has fallen into chaos when a solar flare destroys most of the world's technology, and various warlords arise to fight over what is left, Dave Bautista stars as a treasure hunter who continues to put his skills to work finding rare and lost items for the local would-be king (Samuel L. Jackson).
Jake's latest quest, one needs to be convinced into undertaking, sends him into France in search of the lost Mona Lisa now kept, with other artifacts, weapons, and wealth, in a secret bunker somewhere in the desolate French countryside. Along the way he'll rely on help of the local French revolutionaries, most notably Olga Kurylenko, fighting the brutal rule of the local warlord (Game of Thrones' Kristofer Hivju) and his army of mostly nameless soldiers.
We get a little bit of puzzle solving by our treasure hunter, mostly in the opening and closing acts, while the script mostly allows our protagonists to move forward with minimal effort that's more about staying one step of the film's baddies and make use of convenient clues left around for them to find than any critical thinking. The action scenes are notable for the use of tanks (but little else) and the desolate landscape makes you wonder where all the film's budget is actually being spent.
Not clever nor stylish enough to elevate it's script, Afterburn misses the mark. It may be more successful than Bautista's last post-apocalyptic thriller but that's faint praise at best.
Watch the trailer- Title: Afterburn
- IMDb: link
