My quick rating - 3.5/10. Air supply is scarce in the near future, forcing a mother and daughter to fight for survival when two strangers arrive desperate for an oxygenated haven. I am always in the mood for new scifi flix and the cast for this one caught my attention. But that is where all the good is in this movie. I think a great deal of fault goes to Doug Simon for not scripting anything believable here. Also the director Stefon Bristol. The story handed to him was very uninspired and certainly started off with all kinds of holes in the idea of no breathable air on Earth all of a sudden. But if you put that part aside, then have Bristol paint us a picture of a world without air after 4 years and the landscape looks like a war-torn environment that had just been decimated with nuclear bombs. Sure, a screwed-up atmosphere is going to kill all living things so no trees and birds are to be expected but not collapsed buildings and bridges? That is just plain stupid and so out of place while watching. I am not done with the issues, at least the ones I noticed. Since the mother-daughter due of Jennifer Hudson and Quvenzhane Wallis are confined to a makeshift shelter believing they are the only ones left, much of the movie takes place inside there. But the technology is quite suspect-looking, and apparently functioning since you will be subject to the warning alarms going off constantly during this flick. Assuming that hasn't given you enough of a headache, whenever anyone needs ot go outside, usually to repair something, the scenery is all so cardboard cut out of this post-apocalyptic world that you wonder if it was fashioned by a local high school for the set design. That comment leads me to the only highlight of this movie, and that is where all their money had to have gone: The cast. That is all that can explain all these shortcomings. The first name on that cover that popped out to me was Milla Jovovich and I am sure she still doesn't come cheap. Everyone played their parts very well and did the best they could with such a mediocre story. A story that drives you right into a very silly ending that again, has so little basis of plausibility and I cannot point out why without spoiling it. Overall, the performances just aren't going to save this one from being a very forgettable experience in case you do end up finding it.
Breathe is not available for streaming. Justwatch as of 04.16.24
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