I had not seen the movie in decades. I recall that it had some religious overtones - the title, the famous final scene (above), and the fact that it is his blood that will save others to cite three examples. In the movie a girl also asks the hero if he is God, and there is talk of crucifixion.
I vaguely remembered a few other parts of it, including a love scene involving the hero and the "last" woman on earth, and the death of the woman's brother. But other details were sketchy.
I decided to watch it.
Pretty early on I started seeing some issues.
The movie opens with our armed hero wandering about and going into a theater to watch Woodstock - mouthing the words to show he has done this multiple times. But then he exits the theater and realizes it's almost dark and "they" will be coming out.
Wait. he's been successfully battling "them" for 2 years and he's dumb enough to forget time now?
It leads to racing through the streets, and them almost getting him. Action and drama! And he gets to shoot some mutants.
His home (below) is a fortified building. But wait: It's hemmed in by other buildings. If the mutants are so intent on getting him, could they not have jumped from the roofs of nearby buildings onto his roof, and chop through to get at him? Or set his building on fire? Or since they are constantly building bonfires to burn books and artifacts of industrial society could they have just set the nearby buildings on fire and let it spread to his and burn him out?
Our hero is later captured by the mutants. They could have just killed him, but no, they have to have a trial, a long verbal confrontation with the leader of the mutants, and then plan an elaborate public execution. Of course, that allows him to escape.
He is helped to escape by the "last" woman and a young man. He rides with the woman on a motorcycle, even though we have been given no indication he is a skilled bike rider, and he does some stuntman-like maneuvers through mutants who could easily have knocked them over, and even leaps over a car (below) landing cleanly and escaping. Right.
The dialogue is really dated, replete with early 70's slang. Probably written by some honky.
We get to the love scene, which is handled discretely. But the following morning the woman gets out of bed naked and walks across the room. The human body is beautiful and can be shown artfully, but the nudity here was gratuitous.
I switched the channels. The nude scene was the last straw, and by that point I also started to recall more of the last part of the movie and to realize how flawed and contrived it was. The ending in particular strives for profundity - ooo, I get it, he's Jesus and he is crucified to save others with his blood! - but falls far short.
Sorry Mr. Heston. You've made better movies.
And this one had no tasty treats like Soylent Green.
Pax et bonum
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