How It Ends, movie (2018) - Film review by Kadmon

How It Ends, movie (2018)
image © Netflix

Article updated: 2021.10.09

The How It Ends (2018) is a disaster drama film. The movie was reviewed by Kadmon.

Product: How It Ends, movie (2018)

Original title: How It Ends

Series: -

Setting: Earth

Product type: Film, Genre: disaster drama, Style: fantasy, disaster, family drama

Release: 2018.07.13

Watched: very recent (2021.10), first time

Rating: Average (2 out of 3 points), Enjoyment: Good (2+ out of 3 points)

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This is my review of How It Ends, a disaster drama movie from 2018. It's about a young man trying to reach his girlfriend during an apocalyptic event. The How It Ends film has some interesting parts, I recommend it to fans of the genre.

If you'd like to be surprised by the How It Ends film, I don't recommend you to watch the trailer beyond 0:30, because it gives away parts of the plot. It basically provides a summary of the film, up to the ending scene.

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Review (spoiler-free) - How It Ends, movie (2018)

I didn't know anything about this movie, until it was recommended to me. I've read the preview text, and went to watch this. I didn't watch the trailer.

The How It Ends movie is about a young man trying to reach his girlfriend during an apocalyptic event.

The story is okay, but if the setting is our own world, it's not very logical. There are no real character arcs.

The cinematography is okay, the movie is visually interesting. The action scenes are okay.

How are the characters are not very deep or well developed, but their portrayal by the actors was okay.

The music (by Atli Örvarsson) is okay.

How It Ends is a watchable disaster drama, I think fans of the genre might enjoy it.

My experience

I was mostly satisfied with How It Ends (2018).

Rating: Average (2 out of 3 points). How It Ends is a watchable film.

Enjoyment: Good (2+ out of 3 points). Despite the shortcomings of the How It Ends movie, I enjoyed watching it, as I like disaster dramas and post-apocalyptic movies.

Rewatchability: I'm not sure. I think it's mostly the surprises in the story that makes you feel interested.

Chance of watching it again: No. Now that I know the story, there's no need to watch it again.

Chance of watching a sequel: Probably. I enjoyed this enough that I might watch it in the right circumstances.

How It Ends, movie (2018)
image © Netflix

Will you enjoy this?

If you like mystery or thriller movies, you might like How It Ends.

If you like post-apocalyptic action movies (Mad Max), you might like the film, although there are not many action scenes in the How It Ends movie.

If you like disaster movies (Earthquake, Twister), you might like How It Ends, although the focus is not really on the disaster itself.

If you enjoyed the No Blade of Grass (1970), you might be interested in this story.

Watching for plot points

If you are interested in fantasy disaster stories, I think it's worth watching the How It Ends movie for the plot points, although we don't really get to know what happened even in the end.

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How It Ends, movie (2018)
image © Netflix

Review with spoilers - How It Ends, movie (2018)

I mostly liked the How It Ends movie.

Cover

The cover of the movie shows a man wearing a gas mask. I think that is kind of a spoiler, I would have preferred it without that mask.

The trailer

The trailer is basically a substitute for watching the movie.

If you prefer spoilers, it's a great trailer for the How It Ends film. If you prefer to avoid spoilers, it could ruin the movie for you.

Promise of the first scene

The film starts with colourful pictures of the stars, the sky, then a ultrasound image of a baby. Then we see a young pair, who are awaiting a baby to be born. I assume that the story will be around them. As I know from the preview text that this is a post-apocalyptic movie, I think something will happen to them that they need to survive together.

Execution: It was interesting for me that for most of the movie they were separated, and the story was about the young man, and the father of the girl.

Plot summary / Synopsis

There's a young man (Theo James as Will Younger) who travels to meet the father of his girlfriend to propose to him. The girlfriend (Kat Graham as Sam Sutherland) stays at home, in Seattle.

The young man meets the father (Forest Whitaker as Tom Sutherland), but the proposal goes wrong, and he is asked to leave. The next morning, while the young man is talking on the phone with his girlfriend, something happens, and the connection is cut. It turns out that something happened on the West Coast of the USA that causes country-wide loss of electricity.

The young man and the father decides to reach the girl in a car. Although there's a military cordon, the father gets them through. They get in an accident. Their car breaks down, and the father gets some broken ribs. They ask a local mechanic (Grace Dove as Ricki) to accompany them, in case another breakdown happens.

The weather is strange, unusual storms happen, unlikely clouds form, and the air gets uncharacteristically hot.

During their trip they are constantly attacked or threatened by people:

• At a gas station, some punks want to steal their car.
• A man tries to attack them in a stolen police car.
• Man with rifles steal their fuel. They have to chase and kill them to get the fuel back.
• They get ambushed at a bridge, and they have to escape through a shoot-out.

After one of their fights, the mechanic decides to leave them. They find an derailed military train, abandoned. During one of the fights, the father dies due to his untreated ribs.

The young man finally reaches Seattle, but it's in ruins. He finds a note, telling him where to find his girlfriend. He goes there, where she stays with his neighbour (Mark O'Brien as Jeremiah). The neighbour already convinced himself in the past four days that he'll live alone with the girlfriend in his shed, so he tries to kill the young man, but the young man shoots him. There's a large smoke cloud coming, so the young man and the girl get in the car to get away. Then the film ends while the cloud is still approaching their car.

The setting

The setting is contemporary alternate Earth, after some cataclysm happening.

In this world, regular people are desperate, violent psychopaths. After a few days without electricity, they grab the nearest vehicle to play Mad Max. If the story would have happened some time later after a persisting cataclysm, it would have been more believable that this takes place in our own world.

How It Ends, movie (2018)
image © Netflix

The cataclysm

We don't really get to know a lot of solid info on the happenings.

Something happened in Las Vegas and Seattle that caused electricity to fail. There are also earthquakes. Then later we see Seattle as if it was hit by something, but it might have been an earthquake. Ash is falling from the sky, and people are suffocating, but a gas mask without oxygen supply is enough to prevent death, so it's some kind of poisonous particle in the air.

The GPS satellites don't connect with the phones, even though they don't need those towers to work. That suggests some atmospheric problem, or the loss of the satellites.

Electricity works strange, there are point of electricity that are working, and allow people to call places without electricity.

We see that the compass doesn't work properly.

According to FoundFlix, the cause is the reversing of magnetic poles.

The message of the story

I'm not sure there's one. "If you go on a road-trip, prepare for it by watching Mad Max"?

The structure of the story

The scenes of the How It Ends film are played in sequence, following the same storyline. The viewpoint character is the young man. It has the usual arc of the dramatic structure - beginning, action, a kind of resolution, then it still ends abruptly.

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Things I liked

• The vistas looked nice.
• The car-fight on the bridge looked cool.

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How does it compare to the other works of the creators?

I haven't seen any other works of the writers (Brooks McLaren) or the director (David M. Rosenthal).

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How It Ends, movie (2018)
image © Netflix

Analysis of the story - How It Ends, movie (2018)

I mostly liked the story, I didn't find problems that would have prevented me from enjoying How It Ends, although there were parts that I considered unlikely.

Problematic elements

The characters: We don't get to know the characters in the beginning, and even by the end, we only get snippets of the young guy. For a family drama like this, it would be essential to get to know at least the main characters - the guy, the girl and the father.

The point of electricity: This was strange on multiple levels, unless technology is working in other ways in the setting of the movie. Electricity seemed to work in a radius of like 100 meters. There were a couple of lamps that were starting to give light. That means that electricity got there. The fact that other lights around didn't get alight, might have been due to the lamps not working, but it's still strange. Then, they were able to get reception on their phones. For that, they would need towers that also have electricity. Otherwise, they wouldn't get a signal. But even if there's a working tower nearby, they would need the tower of the sender to be working with electricity. As the girl sent the message from Seattle, and as we have seen Seattle later, it's unlikely that the message would have left that city.

Untreated ribs: Why didn't they look for a medic to treat the problem? It wouldn't take that long, he could have some painkillers and antibiotics. He might have even survived until they got to his daughter.

Military train: First, it's strange that military equipment is just laying there without a single guard. Also, it would have been more useful to grab one of the military cars, and stuff it with the military supplies that's in the crates. Then, our hero takes military fuel, that's probably for diesel vehicles.

Desperate measures: When the car stops, the young man rather destroys it with the supplies inside instead of trying to repair it or trying to find another car. He might have been in that state of mind, but the movie doesn't show that to the audience.

The IT guy: The guy seems unhinged, and tried to kill the main guy. Yet, the girl seems to trust him. If he is that unhinged, it would show a lot earlier, so the girl, who was living neary him, wouldn't trust him either. Or even if she is the trusting kind of person, the other neighbours would have alerted her not to trust that guy.

The "character arc": In the beginning, the young man never used a gun, and he thinks it will be unnecessary. In the end he draws and shoots faster than the guy holding a gun at him. Building up these kind of reflexes takes a lot of time. It's more likely that the young man would just freeze until he gets shot.

Cliffhanger ending: The story ends in the middle of action, leaving us with an ambiguous ending.

Unanswered questions

• What happens to the mechanic Ricki?
• What happens to the main characters in the end?

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Possibilities of improvement

• Cut the electric point: It doesn't make sense, and it's not necessary for the story.
• Cut the military train: It doesn't change the story any way.
• Drop the pregnancy: It doesn't change anything in the story, and it doesn't come into play anytime during the film except for a few mentions.
• Probably cut the IT guys murder attempt: It doesn't really fit into the story, it doesn't change anything, and it's unnecessary for the character arcs.

How it could have been better?

Establish the characters. Make them look like real people.

Make the catastrophe the main antagonist. They should get through a series of natural gauntlets, with the occasional human antagonists.

Add an ending.

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How It Ends, movie (2018)
image © Netflix

Uses for the film - How It Ends, movie (2018)

Plot

• Some unknow catastrophe is happening, that causes a country-wide collapse of the electric grid.

Scenes

• The shot of destroyed Seattle can be used to show any large city after an attack or a cataclysm
• The final scene with the smoke cloud coming could be useful to show a similar situation.

Scenario ideas - Role-playing game scenario ideas

• Something strange has happened, with global implications, and there's no information about it. The characters are asked to travel to the area to recover a person / objective.
• There's a breakdown of society when the characters are on their way to a far away location. People constantly try to mug them, or get their vehicle, or steal their supplies. Some might even outright try to kill them. Policemen or soldiers try to take advantage of their authority and weapons. People who dress like policemen or soldiers try to use their disguise to mislead the characters.

Scenario ideas - Wargame scenario ideas

• One team (defenders) was approached by another team (attackers), who they though were their allies, but when they are close enough, it turns out they were wearing a disguise. Set up the playing area together or randomly. Put the defending playing in the middle. Then set up the attackers anywhere else on the board, but at least one movement away from the defenders. The attackers have a specific goal (kill the leader of the defenders, get their hands on their supplies or special equipment). The defenders have to leave the playing area. The defenders win if more than half of them leave the playing area. The attackers win if they achieve their goal. If both of them succeed, it's a draw.
  
  • A second scenario might be played to take revenge if the attackers won in the first scenario. After the defenders get together, they can start to chase the attackers. If the goal of the attackers was to kill the leader of the defenders, now they have to kill their leader. If the goal was to take supplies, they have to recover the supplies. Place the survivors of the previous attackers in the middle of the playing area. Place the survivors of the defenders on any the edges of the playing area, up to the middle point, as they encircle their target. The attackers win if they are able to leave the playing area, while denying the victory of the other side. The defenders win if they are able to achieve their objective.
• One team (scavengers) find some dead or dying bodies scattered in the area (there might be also vehicles around). Unknown to them, those bodies belong to two different factions, the attacker needs to sign which bodies belong to them. Set up the playing area together or randomly, and put some bodies around. They have some time to check those bodies, and decide what to do with them (help them, or rob them). After they have enough time to investigate (four turn might do it in most system), soldiers enter from the edge of the playing area to recover their own, and take the other side as prisoners. If the scavengers helped enough people belonging to their army, they might get a pass, and they won't be attacked if they leave everything. If they want to keep the things they too, the soldiers will attack them. The scavengers win if more than half of them leave the playing area, with some loot. The soldiers win if they prevent the scavengers to take any loot, or kill more than half of them.
• One team tries to get through a road, that belongs to people who they think of as neutrals. It turns out that they are actually enemies. The attacker player sets up the playing area around a road. Put the defenders on the road, in the middle of the playing area. Set up the attackers anywhere else on the playing area, at least one movement away from the defenders. The defenders win if more than half of them is able to leave the playing area. The attackers win if they kill more than half of the defenders.

Miniatures - 1/50-1/60 (28-32mm scale)

Civilians: Modern human-sized human civilians.

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Similar stories - How It Ends, movie (2018)

Novels

John Christopher: The Death of Grass (1956): Civilization falls due to an apocalyptic event (viral death of grass). People fight each other for supplies.

Movies

Mad Max (1979): Civilization falls due to an apocalyptic event (unspecified). People fight each other for supplies.

No Blade of Grass (1970): Civilization falls due to an apocalyptic event (viral death of grass). People fight each other for supplies. Based on The Death of Grass novel.

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Frequently asked questions - How It Ends, movie (2018)

Is the How It Ends film based on a book or comics?

No, How It Ends is not based on either books or comics.

Is there a post credit scene in How It Ends?

No, there's no post credit scene in How It Ends.

Where can I see How It Ends? Where can I watch How It Ends online? Is How It Ends available on Netflix? Is How It Ends on Amazon?

As of 2021.10.08, How It Ends is available on Netflix.

What happens at the end of How it Ends?

The How it Ends movie abruptly ends without a resolution or proper ending.

Is there a sequel to How it Ends by Netflix?

As far as a I know, How it Ends is a stand-alone movie.

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Resources - How It Ends, movie (2018)

Official

How It Ends: Official article.

Information

IMDB: How It Ends (2018): Database article.

WikiPedia: How It Ends (2018 film): Database article.

Letterboxd: How It Ends 2018 : Database article.

Rotten Tomatoes: How It Ends 2018: Database article.

Creation

: Concept art article.¤

Reviews with no spoilers - How It Ends film (2018)

Filmnéző Lehel (for Filmnéző / Movie Watcher): How It Ends - Review (in Hungarian): Review video about the How It Ends film with no spoilers, in Hungarian.¤

English version by Google Translate

Reviews with spoilers - How It Ends film (2018)

: Review article of the How It Ends movie, with spoilers.¤

Analysis - How It Ends movie (2018)

FoundFlix: HOW IT ENDS (2018) Ending + Cause of Apocalypse Explained: Plot summary video. Includes a possible explanation for the cataclysm.Ł

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Buying the product - How It Ends, movie (2018)

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Have you seen the How It Ends film? How do you like the movie? Would you recommend it to others? Do you know reviews or resources you'd like to add? What further thoughts do you have about it? Tell your opinion in the comments!