SURVIVE

3 stars

Signature Entertainment. Digital Platforms. Out Now

A sort of disaster movie, creature feature from France, SURVIVE has a family out in a yacht. Mum Julia (Émilie Dequenne) and Dad Tom (Andreas Pietschmann) are celebrating their son Ben’s (Lucas Ebel) birthday with their daughter Cassie (Lisa Delamar) when they witness a lot of stuff falling from the sky into the sea and are then buffeted by a violent storm. That, however is just the start of their problems… in a triumph of ridiculous movie science the poles of the earth reverse and they find they are stranded in their boat in the desert. Why? Because the land and the sea have swapped places. Seems entirely possible!

Faced with this hazardous situation, the family must try and figure out what they do next in order to survive. Wouldn’t you know it but the first other person they come across just happens to be a psycho killer. And that’s how the film goes, piling daft plot contrivances on top of each other in an enjoyably bonkers manner. As they try and trek across the desert to reach Captain Nao (Olivier Ho Hio Hen), who may well offer a means of survival, before the poles reverse again, they face other dangers. Not least of which are marauding killer crabs. Yep, you read that right!

I have to say, despite the fact this is immeasurably silly, it was an enjoyable slice of utter science fiction nonsense and, being French, had bursts of brutal violence. It even tried to shoehorn in a message about climate change in amongst the various daft incidents. Of course it didn’t really add up, but if you can get beyond the fact that it isn’t remotely believable you will have a good time.

Steve Kirkham