Guerrilla Filmmaking has been a concept that has grown in popularity and Chris Jones, one of his most serious divulgers and proponents in the UK, has given many budding filmmakers the inspiration to wet their toes in the filmmaking water by means of books, seminars and many other efforts.
This collective film is such an effort, people presenting scripts, others criticising them and selecting some for production, and eventually making a film with all the work of the participants, a series of short films that circumscribe themselves to a single theme, in this case to present the situation in which an asteroid is hitting planet Earth and people have literally minutes to decide what to do.
The idea is compelling and the beginning of the film (spoilers start here) is great: the US president sits in front of the camera and lets people know that the eponymous asteroid will make impact in around 90 minutes and there is nothing to be done about it and that is the end of it all, So far, so depressing.
From here all the short films (I believe 50 of them, thus the title) grapple with the theme, all of them with great skill, some of them repeating the core theme from the same angle (there are lots of family goodbyes and children left in the dark about the impeding doom) and a few really thinking out of the box (only a couple of films manage to save some of the characters, one for a few months to come, another one has a more singular escape for one of the characters, even though the actual action isn't there).
The films have everything: animals, a French couple looking fab on their wedding day, a Russian astronaut, some special effects, stunts, and children, children, children, which really says where the hearts of most good people making these films are, which was really moving albeit a tad boring I have to say, and surprisingly few military men, a normal trope in end of times films in which the military often takes over. Yay to pacifism I say (although there is an ominous background noise with people screaming in the distance and choppers flying by).
I was expecting superheroes but the only heroes were regular people, some of them taking terribly difficult decisions in moments that will touch the heart of even the most cynical person.
The quality of the acting is overall very good, no goofy overacting or bad acting, which is quite impressive considering the amount of actors involved (a number that should be in the hundreds), the films are polished technically and the editing, which I am sure must have been a nightmare, comes with great credit by mixing all this discordant action together in a product that can be shown and which is a pleasure to watch.
Well done to all the people involved, and if you are a new viewer pondering if you should watch the film, fear not, it is a great piece of solid entertainment.
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