DVD Reviews

Carriers – DVD Review

By Jeff Swindoll Jan 3, 2010, 17:58 GMT

$Four kids are driving through the desert on the way to the beach, their faces anything but cheery: this isn\'t Spring Break. They\'re trying to outrun the end of the world and each other. In Alex and David Pastor\'s Carriers, no one is safe from the viral pandemic threatening to wipe out the human race. Determined to elude the deadly virus, Danny (Lou Taylor Pucci), his brother Brian (Chris Pine),$

Four kids are driving through the desert on the way to the beach, their faces anything but cheery: this isn\'t Spring Break. They\'re trying to outrun the end of the world and each other. In Alex and David Pastor\'s Carriers, no one is safe from the viral pandemic threatening to wipe out the human race. Determined to elude the deadly virus, Danny (Lou Taylor Pucci), his brother Brian (Chris Pine), ...more

It’s the end of the world and I feel… not fine. Depressed, actually. I guess that the end of the world should veer towards depression rather than fine. Carriers presents us a bleak future where a virus is destroying the last remnants of humanity. All some folks want to do is just go to the beach.

Brothers Brian (Chris Pine) and Danny (Lou Taylor Pucci) are on their way to the beach that they visited as children, with Brian’s girlfriend Bobby (Piper Perabo) and Kate (Emily VanCamp). This wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary, but the population of the world is dying from a pandemic disease.

The four friends obey a set of rules that Brian has formulated and to disobey them is the last thing that you want to do. The four set out for the imagined fun of Turtle Beach but along the way encounter Frank (Christopher Meloni) and his sick daughter, disheartened doctors, militant survivalists, and deserted cities.

Even as the rules get broken they still keep on their quest to get to Turtle Beach. The memories they make on the way there might blot out the good ones from their past.

Carriers is probably seeing the light of day thanks to Chris “Captain Kirk” Pine. Hence his being prominently displayed on the cover (the only one without a protective mask) and a Star Trek preview starting off the disc. Note that Lou Taylor Pucci is given top billing.

Carriers is an apocalyptic picture and joins a long line of the same theme. Some of those films try to leave you with a hopeful note. Carriers tries to do so but in the end it’s still depressing. It may have a certain amount of currency since it deals with the end of the world coming from a viral source. Shades of H1N1 there.

Our main cast of characters is well cast, with Pine being very cocky of the brothers. Pucci is the more sensitive of the two but he loses that innocence, as they get closer to their beach vacation. Perabo is a good match for Pine’s character and VanCamp is a distant character with issues of her own.

We’re led to believe that VanCamp is supposed to be Pucci’s gal but there’s never a spark between them. There are many instances of humanity’s breakdown, as our group gets closer to their destination. Not all of them will frolic in the surf but will succumb to the ravages of the unseen destroyer of the world.

Carriers is presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. The only special feature is previews for other Paramount products.

Carriers is a good film that has a current theme with our current fear of all things viral. It seems very realistic in the way the world slowly dies and the reaction of various sections of humanity to it. Its downer ending also rings true to how I’d imagine the world to end, not with a bang but with a depressed gasp.