The Last Winter (2006)

To be honest I wasn't expecting much going into this film, yet was pleasantly surprised about it for about the first 45mins. As with all isolation movies, there is a profound sense of eeriness, and there are particular things (such as the box from the previous expedition, and a strange log book) which, I thought, were going to be good set ups for more mystery further on in the story. The acting wasn't by any means bad either. Ron Perlman was, well, Ron Perlman, and James Le Gros did fairly well as his opposite. It wasn't even that the characters were unlike-able or underdeveloped.

But there certainly is a distinct point in the film where everything well and truly turns on its head. And from there it is all down hill.

It actually baffles me completely that a film can go from eerie and interesting, to ridiculous and plain stupid like flipping a light switch. It was like the writers got to a point and said "hmm, we haven't killed many people yet. Probably should drop the storyline and do some character culling." Then proceeded to make completely irrational decisions that left you screaming at the screen in frustration.

The biggest flaw in this film is that it never returns to the eeriness it started out with. Instead it decided it needed to go cliché and kill off characters in ways that were baffling. They never circle back to the set ups that they originally established, so leave you thinking 'well, what was the point'.

And there is none!

I am serious. The end of this movie has absolutely zero relation to the main storyline! And don't even get me started on the final shot. Whoever did that stroke of genius deserves a bullet.

Overall my experience of this film went a lot like this: 'Cool. Oh yup. Hmm creepy. Oh yup. Ooo nice! Hmm, interesting. Wait, what? No seriously, what? WHY!? What the f**k. What the hell, just use the dead guys jacket!! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?? ....Are you serious. What,the,f**k. Let me guess, that's it? ...Yup damn. Well that was terrible.'

As most people have stated, it was a film that showed serious potential but threw it all away by sticking its head up its own ass. Watch the first 45mins and walk away. At least the questions you have won't be shadowed by the unnecessary questions we are force fed at the end.

Fmovies: I thought I had missed a gem. I was wrong. This movie prompted me to write my first review. Yeah, my first but not fake. Why shill on a movie 12 years old?? What a sad waste of talent. A good cast that acted well above this movie. I was neither horrified, mystified, or thrilled. The "threat" in this movie was inadequately developed and almost non exsistent. Unending character development and "deeply meaningful" conversation pegged this movie closer to a drama than anything else. Thought it might be a slow burn leading to some awesome ending, not. I gave it maximum patience for over an hour, than started fast forwarding hoping for a climax that never came. I have given more time to this review than the movie is worth. 3/10 for a good cast trying to save this movie. Too bad the writer, director, editor, producer, and studio wouldnt let them.

The American oil company KIC Corporation is building an ice road to explore the remote Northern Artic National Wildlife Refuge seeking energy independence. Independent environmentalists work together in a drilling base headed by the tough Ed Pollack (Ron Perlman) in a sort of agreement with the government, approving procedures and sending reports of the operation. When one insane team member is found dead naked on the snow, the environmentalist James Hoffman (James Le Gros) suspects that sour gases may have been accidentally released in the spot provoking hallucinations and insanity in the group. After a second fatal incident, he convinces Ed to travel with the team to a hospital for examination. However, weird events happen trapping the group in the base.

"The Last Winter" is intriguing, beginning like "The Thing" blended with "An Inconvenient Truth" in wonderful locations in Iceland. Then the story shifts to a rip-off of "The Shining", ending in a complete and disappointing ambiguous mess. Ron Perlman plays an unpleasant character, and it is impossible to feel any empathy for Ed Pollack. It seems that the unknown director and writer Larry Fessenden was also affected by the hallucinogen gas of the story and end the movie completely mad, showing a weak answer of the nature in spite of having a plot with great potential. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Colapso no Ártico" ("Collapse in the Artic")

The Last Winter fmovies. The setting is bleak, white and, of course, isolated. A remote drilling station with company employees waiting things out. Then something starts happening.

Another reviewer pegged it nicely as a mix of "The Shining" with a little bit of 'The Thing" and you have a flavor of what this movie is like.

What's nice is that there isn't the usual pot boiler about some secret military base, or some evil corporate shenanigans. The characters are the normal sorts of people who actually would work in this kind of remote, exploratory/drilling outpost. And I especially like the music/camera work they did in one segment. . .visually lyrical.

And the 'Whatever it is"? I still don't have the darnedest idea!! That's what makes this movie a nice horror treat. Yes, there's a global warming message in there-- but this isn't an environmentalist groupie movie trying to hit you over the head. Global warming is just one of the ingredients.

But overall. . .spooky.

I was engaged for the whole movie. The sense of being out in the snow, building tension and sense of dread was totally captured. The characters were very well scripted and portrayed.

If anything, the underlying threat could have been totally left to the imagination without a reveal. Having said that, the total impact of the movie was nevertheless not spoiled.

The snow scenes and landscape were captured with a bleak and beautiful starkness. The action scenes were done with incredible realism and not overdone.

Ron Perlman did a great job of portraying the rough and tough oil man, yet was able to shift as the plot unfolded. All the actors and characters were totally believable, and sustained their correct arcs through the movie.

"The Last Winter" has an effective build up. It's not completely original, mind you. We have seen that kind of setting before, in "The Thing" and a dozen other movies where a crew is isolated in a strange place where weird things start to happen. It's the memory of those far superior movies that make this one watchable at first. However, the story drags on and it all goes downhill soon.

The mysterious ongoings aren't really that intriguing, and they get less intriguing the more they are exposed. On top of that, Ron Perlman's character is annoying and unbelievable. He's just a constant pain in the a.., just for the hell of it. The worst part about "The Last Winter", however, is the resolution or rather the lack thereof. It seems as if director/writer whatshisface hadn't thought the whole thing through and just decided to go ahead with filming because the topic of global warming is so trendy right now.

Well, it's a pity. "The Last Winter" could have been a solid mystery/thriller. Instead it's an unsatisfying waste of your time. There are far too many good movies out there waiting to be watched for you to rent this one.