THESE FINAL HOURS (2013) (mini film review by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)

[Philip De Parto]

The following review is reprinted with permission from

THE MT VOID
03/15/24 -- Vol. 42, No. 37, Whole Number 2319

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THESE FINAL HOURS (2013)

The end-of-the-world film THESE FINAL
HOURS is basically an Australian take on the Canadian film LAST
NIGHT.  It is set in Perth rather than Toronto, and in THESE FINAL
HOURS we are told what the cause of the end of the world is.  (In
LAST NIGHT, we never find out what the disaster is, although it
seems to make daylight last until midnight.)

But I suppose that LAST NIGHT in turn was based on, or at least
inspired by, ON THE BEACH, which of course was set in Australia.  
What goes around comes around.  (I will note I am not the only
person to see these connections.)

One way the Canadians and Australians differ is that (SPOILER) they
don't plant a nuke in the asteroid/create a virus for an alien
spaceship/plant a nuke in the Earth's core/create a giant space
ark/move into mine shafts/...  This was often given as the
difference between American (U.S.) science fiction and British
science fiction: the former was basically optimistic, the latter
pessimistic.  This may be less true now, and there is also a lot
more to even just Anglophone science fiction than that dichotomy.

I can't say this is anything special, but it will appeal to fans of
the apocalypse sub-genre.  [-ecl]

Released theatrically in the U.S. 6 March 2015.  Rating: +1 (-4 to
+4), or 6/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2268458/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/these_final_hours>