A sorry excuse for an apocalypse film!
The biggest problem for me with this film is the lack of character development among the actors. Because the film gives little to no background on the characters lives before the unknown catastrophic event occurs, the audience has no way to tell if any one of the characters change throughout the film. For instance in the movie "The Road," a brilliant depiction of a post apocalypse world, filmmakers use flashbacks to illustrate how the character's personalities before the apocalypse were drastically changed/altered as a reaction to the new world they now encounter, littered with examples of ominous unknown territory. As in "How It Ends," an unidentified catastrophic event has occurred. But in "The Road," through the use of flashbacks, It becomes clear how the extreme stress of fighting for survival in the new world merits the contrast in personalities and mindsets of the characters, bringing out the best and worse in them; thus creating much appreciated character development. Because of contrasts seen in characterization, compassion for the actors new situation forces the audience to imagine and question how they themselves would react to such extreme circumstances. This didn't happen in " How it Ends." Instead my only question was "when will this movie end!" Other films like "The Handmaids Tale," also uses flashbacks to capture character development. (Another brilliant apocalyptic film.)
In short, "How It Ends" takes two men in a car united to find a daughter and a girlfriend on a literal road to nowhere! Another missed opportunity was hiring an A lister actor, Forrest W. to lead the charge to get people to watch!
Sorry but an almost endless barrage of car accidents and other senseless encounters on a dark road doesn't make viewers care about characters they feel no compassion for. The film, "How It Ends" is not only a time waster, but an underdeveloped story that should have stayed on a bad writer's desk.
And this is how it ends......
Michelle-