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Apr 07, 2014 By Zach Hollwedel Web Exclusive

Married couple Nick (Ben McKenzie) and Becky (Caroline Dhavernas) hit the road for a weekend in the mountains at their college friends’ remote cabin. As they drive further and further out of cell service, a mysterious mass text message, “Goodbye world,” pings millions of phones across the country, triggering a cyber attack that brings society to its knees. Soon, four of the groups’ other friends show up, and collectively, the eight of them struggle to keep the cabin safe from looters and dangerous militiamen while coming to terms with the reality of an apocalyptic America.

The premise – a text message virus shuts down most modern technology and leads to widespread and instantaneous chaos – seems a bit far-fetched, and one might expect Goodbye World to have received a low budget horror film treatment. However, the first major surprise of the film is how slick it looks. Unfortunately, that’s one of the last surprises, and the only positive one. Director and co-writer Denis Hennelly does a serviceable job alluding to the chaos engendered by the text through off-camera updates, incidents, and sounds, but he shoots himself in the foot by detouring focus from the apocalyptic event. For much longer than necessary, the friends drink, laugh, and get high without advancing the story. Once they realize the gravity of current events, they immediately accept that the world is ending, yet, in a tonal inconsistency, they don’t stop getting drunk or high. Instead, they take turns reevaluating their relationships. Hennelly dispatches with the apocalyptic storyline in favor of a drama wherein early 30-somethings swap partners because they are unhappy in their marriages.

Goodbye World promises viewers one thing, yet it delivers something completely different. Armageddon is little more than the precipitating incident that gets the eight together, at which point the film becomes like any other partner swap tale. Only in the last thirty minutes is there any hint at the darkness and doom caused by the apocalypse, and even then, no one quite seems to care. The virus itself is unclear, as is the reason for dedicating a night to Goodbye World.

goodbyeworldmovie.com

Author rating: 4/10