English: Steve Carell pauses for a moment to take in the grandeur of the 82nd Academy Awards, March 7, in Hollywood, Calif. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Review of: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

It is actually kind of a shame that this is the first review that I am going to post on my blog because the movie was really, quite utterly, less than mediocre.  I am not going to bother with a spoiler alert, because I would not want you to waste your time watching this movie in the first place.  Read the review.  It will save you money and time, that is, if you were thinking about watching this movie in the first place.

The 40-year-old Virgin (2005) meets Armageddon (1998) except there is no comedy and no action.  Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is about a man (Steve Carell) who works as an insurance salesman in order to be prepared for the worst.  He and his wife find out that the worst is actually on its way in the form of a 70-mile-wide asteroid on a collision course with the earth.  The asteroid is set to end their world as they know it in 3 weeks time.

His wife immediately leaves him upon hearing the news.  He is left with a job that no longer has any meaning.  He has no family because his Mother has passed away and his Father ran out on them when he was a kid and he has no siblings.  He detaches himself from his self-destructive friends.

Rules do not really seem to apply to anyone anymore because of the world’s impending doom.  Everything around him turns to anarchy.  His apartment building is set on fire and he is forced to leave.

Along the way, the man joins together with a much younger woman (Keira Knightley) neighbor whom he has never met before even though the two live in the same building.

English: Keira Knightley at the 2011 Venice Film Festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They venture out into the now insane world, in order to find the man’s high school sweetheart.  They fall in love along the way.  She gets in touch with her family and he reconciles with his father.

He puts her in his Father’s plane in the middle of the night while she is sleeping and has his Father fly her home to her family.

He goes back to their apartment building and listens to her records in her apartment while waiting for the world to end.  After a little while she returns to find him there and the two lie in bed and talk as the world ends.

I am a big Steve Carell’s comedy and even though this movie is not a comedy, I expected it to have a few laughs.  I did not laugh once during the entire movie.  Many scenes were on the verge of being funny, but they didn’t quite make it there.

The chemistry between Steve Carell and Keira Knightley’s characters did not really exist until almost the end of the movie.  Knightley played her part well, but the story and writing left her with very little to work with.

The movie was very slow to the point of boredom.  It started to pickup a little bit towards the end of the movie, but then it ended.

I think that Steve Carell should stick to comedies because that is definitely what he is good at.  He was cast way against type in this role and it did not suit him.

I give this movie a solid 2 on a scale of 1-10.

Buy, rent, or run?  Run.

I’m glad that I watched this on DVD because I would have been thoroughly disappointed if I had seen it in the Theatre.