‘Scorched Earth’ Trailer: Gina Carano Is A Post-Apocalyptic Bounty Hunter
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. A grizzled badass without a lot to say wanders the wasteland of the post-apocalypse, dispensing justice against armies of bandits and slowly learning to care again after encountering someone who melts their icy heart. That’s the premise of many movies and it is also the premise ofScorched Earth, an upcoming sci-fi action movie that looks like it crawled out of a mid-’90s VHS bargain bin.
But there’s nothing wrong with trash when it’s delicious, committed, interesting trash! So as you prepare to watch theScorched Earthtrailer, ask yourself one question: is this trash worthy of your time?
Scorched Earth Trailer
If the trailer is any indication,Scorched Earthwill not be great trash, which is a shame. There’s nothing wrong with “post-apocalyptic western about a lady bounty hunter killing everybody on sets that look like they were built for pennies,” but it requires a screen presence with more charisma than former MMA fighterGina Carano. Sure, Stephen Soderbergh built an entire film around her with the very good action movie deconstructionHaywire, but every one of her movie roles since then has been nothing short of disastrous. She’s a black hole made of wood inFast and Furious 6, lost in a cast defined by their movie star magnetism. She’s a sour note in the otherwise delightfulDeadpool, bringing the film to a screeching halt whenever she opens her mouth. While she is undeniably an impressive physical force, dialogue has never sounded right in her mouth and theScorched Earthtrailer seems to cut around as much of her dialogue as possible and for good reason. It sounds bad. Really bad.
But the movie surrounding Carano looks like it could have its fair share of low-budget charms, including a hammy villain and some very stupid-looking action. DirectorPeter Howitt(who has directed everything fromAntitrusttoJohnny English) isn’t being shy with the western imagery and it’s a nice, if somewhat obvious, touch. This could be fun! But the trailer definitely makes you wish they had spring for Milla Jovovich, the queen of this kind of cinematic junkfood.
Scorched Earthopens in limited release and arrives on VOD onFebruary 2, 2018. Here’s the official synopsis:
