End of the World
This review contains spoilers
Rooting for the Lava: A Hilariously Painful Breakdown of End of the World (2018)
By Reel Insight
Some disaster movies are thrilling. Others are unintentionally hilarious. And then there’s End of the World (2018) — a low-budget, straight-to-streaming spectacle so poorly executed, it makes The Day After Tomorrow feel like Citizen Kane.
We watched it. We survived. Barely.
The Whole Thing is a Disaster (Not the Good Kind)
From the opening moments, End of the World radiates low effort. This isn’t just a B-movie—it’s more like a Z-minus movie with graphics seemingly ripped from a 1990s PC game. The lava, one of the supposed “main threats,” looks like someone poured orange Jell-O into MS Paint and slapped a glow filter on it. It bubbles and creeps at a pace so slow and unconvincing, you start rooting for it—not out of fear, but out of mercy.
We weren’t rooting for the heroes. We were rooting for the lava… to end their miserable acting.
The Helicopter Scene That Broke Our Spirits
No review of End of the World would be complete without mentioning the parking garage helicopter rescue scene. It plays like a parody but isn’t.
Here’s the setup: The dad and daughter are stranded on a parking garage as lava slowly approaches (well, more like casually strolls in). A helicopter piloted by the son lowers a rope ladder, but the daughter can’t quite reach it. Mom panics and screams to go lower. And then the son delivers the most unintentionally hilarious line in the entire film:
“I can’t go lower or we all die.”
Excuse us—what?
You’re hovering like 30 feet above a concrete garage, not over an active volcano pit. You can’t drop ten more feet? Are the laws of physics different in this universe? Will a slight descent trigger a chain reaction of death?
Apparently, yes. At least according to the film’s “logic.”
Dialogue That Hurts More Than Lava Burns
If the visuals weren’t painful enough, the dialogue will finish the job. Lines are delivered with the emotional depth of a weather report. Scientists throw around tech jargon with all the conviction of someone reading Wikipedia for the first time. Family members yell, cry, and panic in ways that would make a high school play seem Oscar-worthy.
There’s no tension, no heart, and certainly no realism. Just a lot of yelling, bad CGI, and scenes that play out like they were written by a very enthusiastic AI after binge-watching Roland Emmerich movies on fast-forward.
The Real Hero? Lava.
By the halfway point, we realized: the lava was the only consistent character. It did what it said it would do. It moved forward. It melted things. It didn’t overact. And it gave us hope—hope that it would finally wash over these screaming, poorly written characters and end the madness.
When your audience is actively cheering for molten death, your disaster movie may have missed the mark.
So Bad It’s Almost (Almost) Good
End of the World (2018) is the kind of film that makes you ask existential questions:
“Why am I watching this?”
“Is this lava… melting up the building?”
“Did they use a Roomba for a tracking shot?”
And yet… we finished it. In pain, yes—but also in awe. Not of its greatness, but of its sheer commitment to being consistently awful. If nothing else, it makes a great podcast topic and an even better drinking game.
Final Verdict:
End of the World (2018) is a dumpster fire of digital effects, wooden acting, and laughably bad science. But somehow, in the wreckage, it achieves a level of entertainment few films ever reach:
Unintentional comedy gold.
Score: 19/100
By Reel Insight
Some disaster movies are thrilling. Others are unintentionally hilarious. And then there’s End of the World (2018) — a low-budget, straight-to-streaming spectacle so poorly executed, it makes The Day After Tomorrow feel like Citizen Kane.
We watched it. We survived. Barely.
The Whole Thing is a Disaster (Not the Good Kind)
From the opening moments, End of the World radiates low effort. This isn’t just a B-movie—it’s more like a Z-minus movie with graphics seemingly ripped from a 1990s PC game. The lava, one of the supposed “main threats,” looks like someone poured orange Jell-O into MS Paint and slapped a glow filter on it. It bubbles and creeps at a pace so slow and unconvincing, you start rooting for it—not out of fear, but out of mercy.
We weren’t rooting for the heroes. We were rooting for the lava… to end their miserable acting.
The Helicopter Scene That Broke Our Spirits
No review of End of the World would be complete without mentioning the parking garage helicopter rescue scene. It plays like a parody but isn’t.
Here’s the setup: The dad and daughter are stranded on a parking garage as lava slowly approaches (well, more like casually strolls in). A helicopter piloted by the son lowers a rope ladder, but the daughter can’t quite reach it. Mom panics and screams to go lower. And then the son delivers the most unintentionally hilarious line in the entire film:
“I can’t go lower or we all die.”
Excuse us—what?
You’re hovering like 30 feet above a concrete garage, not over an active volcano pit. You can’t drop ten more feet? Are the laws of physics different in this universe? Will a slight descent trigger a chain reaction of death?
Apparently, yes. At least according to the film’s “logic.”
Dialogue That Hurts More Than Lava Burns
If the visuals weren’t painful enough, the dialogue will finish the job. Lines are delivered with the emotional depth of a weather report. Scientists throw around tech jargon with all the conviction of someone reading Wikipedia for the first time. Family members yell, cry, and panic in ways that would make a high school play seem Oscar-worthy.
There’s no tension, no heart, and certainly no realism. Just a lot of yelling, bad CGI, and scenes that play out like they were written by a very enthusiastic AI after binge-watching Roland Emmerich movies on fast-forward.
The Real Hero? Lava.
By the halfway point, we realized: the lava was the only consistent character. It did what it said it would do. It moved forward. It melted things. It didn’t overact. And it gave us hope—hope that it would finally wash over these screaming, poorly written characters and end the madness.
When your audience is actively cheering for molten death, your disaster movie may have missed the mark.
So Bad It’s Almost (Almost) Good
End of the World (2018) is the kind of film that makes you ask existential questions:
“Why am I watching this?”
“Is this lava… melting up the building?”
“Did they use a Roomba for a tracking shot?”
And yet… we finished it. In pain, yes—but also in awe. Not of its greatness, but of its sheer commitment to being consistently awful. If nothing else, it makes a great podcast topic and an even better drinking game.
Final Verdict:
End of the World (2018) is a dumpster fire of digital effects, wooden acting, and laughably bad science. But somehow, in the wreckage, it achieves a level of entertainment few films ever reach:
Unintentional comedy gold.
Score: 19/100
Mini Review: Rooting for the Lava: A Hilariously Painful Breakdown of End of the World (2018) By Reel InsightSome disaster movies are thrilling. Others are unintentionally hilarious. And then there’s End of the World (2018) — a low-budget, straight-to-streaming spectacle so poorly executed, it makes The Day After Tomorrow feel like Citizen Kane. We watched it. We survived. Barely.The Whole Thing is a Disaster (Not the Good Kind) From the opening moments,...