The Quiet Earth

By: themovielord
Date: Thursday, January 10, 2008

Zac (Bruno Lawrence) wakes up in bed at 6:12 AM to find that he is the last person on Earth.

Immediately any fan of the genre can see that ‘The Quiet Earth’ takes a nod from Richard Matheson, “I am Legend” and the film ‘Omega Man’. All the while inspiring films like ‘28 Days Later’. ‘The Quiet Earth’ differs from Richard Matheson masterpiece in many ways and that is its appeal.

Zac is a scientist who is working on a project called, “operation flash light”. What does operation flash light do? Even Zac isn’t sure because he is only working on a small little piece of the project as it is a global experiment to harness the Earth's outer energy for travel.

After Zac finds himself all alone, the departures from the ‘Omega Man’ story are immediately recognizable. We watch Zac look for others, endure the boredom and finally go insane. Personally I found him wearing a negligee howling mad and shooting up a church a great way to illustrate his insanity. Then he takes it one step further in one final act of insanity. There are no mutants, or disease ridden “others” who oppose any kind of threat to Zac. His own worst enemy is himself and boredom.

As it always happens there are other survivors. Zac finds Joanne (Alison Routledge) and they two start looking for other survivors. They start finding corpses of people who had survived the initial “wipe out”. They know this because after three weeks their bodies have not yet begun to decompose. So with a renewed sense of hope and purpose they continue searching for others.

Zac begins to notice that the sun has strange flares and keeps getting brighter. So Zac, being the scientist at heart, starts to take readings (in secret) and notices that slowly the Earth is getting closer to the sun. While away from Joanne, Zac is captured by another survivor, Api (Pete Smith). The three people come to an uneasy recollection that they must start over and live together. Though by this time Zac has fallen in love with Joanne, she has become infatuated with Papi. The chance to really explore two Adams and one Eve is quickly dismissed as the science fiction part of the story quickly takes over as Zac, now spending more time alone, thinks that he has found a way to send them back to the “real world” (if it does actually still exist) or stop the Earth from moving closer to the sun. The plot does get hazy here and quickly becomes a race against time to deliver an explosion that will propel them out of harms way (what ever that harm may actually be is never quite certain).

The end is strange yet, it delivers a perfect science fiction… unh? Much like that of Tim Burtons ‘Planet of the Apes’ I found myself liking and hating the ending. ‘The Quiet Earth’ is probably the last ‘Omega Man’ type film one should watch after seeing ‘Omega Man’, ‘Last Man on Earth’, 28 Days Later’ and I am Legend’. It’s out there, with its plot and story, but leaves you questioning and thinking about its final image.