It Ends has an interesting idea with four friends stuck on a road that never seems to end, a decent setup, but I think it asks for a lot more patience than anyone would put down to watch a movie, I did because I love psychological horror but it never arrives, and for a movie that depends this much on its characters it feels like the actors did their part but the script didnt. The first 15 minutes were a bit annoying with them arguing over some stupid meme and then starts to get interesting but its like the movie peaks at 20 minutes in, after that it goes flat, no pulse.. James, Tyler, Day, and Fisher are out looking for food when they end up on a road with no turns, no way to contact anyone, and no way back to where they came from along with other things like never get tired, never feel like eating or taking a piss. It gets worse because stopping brings out groups of desperate people from the woods who rush toward their Jeep, its like they just laying down flat until someone arrives. I liked that early uncertainty, since none of them knows what these people want or why the road behaves this way. The problem is that the movie slowly loses that sense of danger and never replaces it with anything equally interesting, feeling boring is part of the movie because thats exactly how the characters felt and the Jeep itself tells the story at the end. Once the friends figure out they can avoid those people by just continuing to drive, it becomes less scary and more about how they deal with each other. I have no problem with that direction and I actually think focusing on their friendship could have made the movie much better, I have mention in the past how damn hard is to make movies with limited amount of characters on a small space, considering how much time they are forced to spend together on the Jeep. My issue is that I never found their conversations interesting, felt like they were running out of things to talk about and I had a hard time believing they were close enough for a separation to mean much. They have known each other since school and are reconnecting after time apart, which could explain some of the awkwardness, and this situation turns it into a problem for a movie with such limited setup, makes you wonder then what else there is?, then the road ends.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35519455/
- Platform: PRIME VIDEO
The Road Removes Survival Problems, Not the Boredom
I also think It Ends gets less entertaining once it sets up the strange rules of the road, even though I like the decision to remove the usual survival problems, because that leaves the four friends with practically nothing to do but talk. The characters find out they do not need to sleep, eat, or worry about running out of gas, and they are not aging either, so whatever is happening goes beyond being lost in an never ending road until the road starts to change and so do they. That is an interesting situation because they have practically unlimited time with no guarantee that driving will improve anything, so they start to speculate and talk about being dead, being punished, or being trapped in some other reality, but none of those ideas gives them a clear answer and thats is exactly what you would be expecting on this type of movie but there is never the next step, either find out why they going to stay there for ever or find a way out. I do not think a movie like this needs to explain every strange event, especially when the characters have no reliable way of understanding what happened, bu what bothers me is how little the movie does with their conversations after making it clear that talking is practically all they have left. Day and Fisher slowly get more comfortable with the situation, James stays obsessed with finding a solution, and Tyler reaches a point where he does not want to play this game anymore, this last one is a big problem for the story because its not like he just lay down like the rest, we goes into the woods but then what?. Those reactions make sense, but I wanted more from their interactions before they started making such big decisions. Some of the ridiculous discussions and improvised games are just noise because they not interesting at all and I understand they are just trying to entertain themselves with whatever they have, still those moments rarely turn into anything that made the relationships more interesting to me, and even when the conversations get personal I never felt attached to the group or caring for them since its obviously everyone is paying more attention to what the road is going to do or turn into. The cast has some decent moments together but the serious aspect of the movie does not always work as well. I kept thinking the movie needed to make these people feel like actual friends instead of four individuals sharing the same terrible experience.
Losing the Friends Doesn't Hit Hard Enough
That lack of connection gets even more frustrating when the characters start deciding they have had enough. Tyler is the first to leave the Jeep, accepting that he cannot spend forever driving without knowing whether anything will change. I can understand it, because the situation is ridiculous and continuing only because you have already come so far might not seem worth it anymore, I think by now you have probably figure out the topic of this thing, its both some what interesting and boring, I guess thats how life is sometimes. When Tyler decides to quit the group should have been a much more upsetting moment, because the movie had already spent a lot of time with these characters, yet I did not feel like the group really lost someone whose company mattered that much to them. I am not asking for an exaggerated farewell or a long emotional conversation, but the friendship needed more attention before reaching that point. Day and Fisher last much longer, and I actually preferred how they handle the situation compared with James. They set up routines, play games, talk about whatever comes to mind, and find small ways to make their existence tolerable because at this point thats all they have, existing, its like they were Gods, no human survival needs, just exist. James on the other hand becomes more and more concerned with reaching the end and treating every noticeable change as possible proof that something is finally happening. Even rain becomes important to him because he desperately wants to believe they are making progress. I can see why Day and Fisher get tired of that attitude, especially when James is so consumed with finding an answer that he barely lets himself enjoy their company. When those two decide to stay behind together, I understand they want James to stop making himself miserable. The unfortunate part is that I was not very upset about losing them either, it is a different decision from Tyler leaving, but the movie had not given me enough reasons to care about none of them and probably thats how its design, its not about the characters but what happens to them, so James ends up losing all three friends.
Repetition Kills What Little Horror Is Left
I think the biggest mistake It Ends makes is expecting the repetition to stay interesting just because living through something like this would be psychologically exhausting. I get that spending what could be years on the same road without knowing if anything will change would be awful, as they go they start finding cars with odometers with over 1 million miles on them, we talking about 1.5 years driving at 80mph, just thinking about that makes you feel bored, desperate, anxiety kicks in. The people coming out of the woods give it some horror at first, but their appearances become predictable once the friends learn how to avoid them, and eventually even that danger practically disappears, and I think the movie shoots its own foot when it let Tyler and James grab one of them from the ground and tie him to a tree but for what reason??. There is also the question of what happened to everyone who traveled this road before, especially with all the abandoned vehicles they run into. I suppose those desperate people could be former drivers who gave up their cars and became obsessed with finding another way to continue, but the movie never confirms that. I do not mind leaving it unanswered, because the uncertainty about what is going on outside the Jeep is interesting enough but they did it for the entire movie. The problem is that once the horror matters less, very little else is happening to keep me invested. James searching for answers while his friend's accept their circumstances is a reasonable direction, but the middle of the movie spends too much time repeating the difference between them. I would have preferred a shorter movie that used more of that time to develop their personalities and make their disagreements feel personal, the never ending problem of this movie, it never gave me a reason to care for anyone of them. It Ends does not need more monsters, scarier moments or a complicated explanation for the road, it needs better conversations and a stronger friendship to justify spending so much time with these people, I imageni this been way better since the never ending loop road felt dangerous and scary but they really fumble this one.
James Reaches the End, but That Doesn't Fix the Movie
At the end I think it finally gives James a change that makes sense after everything he has been through, his determination gets him to the end of the road, but there is nothing special waiting for him, just a sign announcing that the road ends and a lot of abandoned vehicles. After spending so long convincing himself he needed to reach that place, I can understand why finding no real explanation would upset him so much. He finally lets himself scream, something his friends used to deal with their frustration, and he even eats one of the snacks they had kept untouched the whole trip, there was this idea of feeling things like new during the movie and I think the ending is that reset or growth James needed. I liked those small choices because James had spent so long worrying about every consequence that he was refusing to enjoy even the most ordinary things. James turns around, picks up a stranger and brings back the ridiculous animal fight question from the beginning of the movie. This time, instead of dismissing the conversation as pointless, James is willing to take part and listen to another person. I think that is the clearest sign of what It Ends wanted to say about uncertainty, friendship and finding reasons to keep going even when nothing rewarding is waiting at the destination. It also gives the movie a slightly more hopeful ending without pretending James solved the mystery or escaped, because he never did any of the two. Unfortunately, understanding the ending does not make everything that happen during the movie any more entertaining. James changes but I wanted to care more the horror aspect of the movie and if we talk about their relationship at the end I would care more about each of them individually because its like none of them care about each other except for Day and Fisher. There is a decent movie somewhere in this idea and I do not think its biggest problem is the lack of answers or traditional horror. It simply spends too much time with four friends without making their friendship interesting enough, by the time James understands what he has been missing but its like he doesnt give a sht about Tyler, Day or Fisher?!. Honestly I had to GPT this one to find out what was behind the courtain, I had a good idea but the director explanation is way way more boring and too deep that most viewers wont get it, for this reason I gave it a 6/10, its like when you build something and its just too damn geeky for others to get it.
