The Last Days of the World (2012)

Such a frustrating disappointment

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

A brilliant movie that does an exceptional job at pushing personal boundaries. Rather than portraying optimistic and romanticized youth, the movie reveals the candid perception and genuine honesty of a young man who is already jaded due to his home environment and his school experiences. If you're unfamiliar with contemporary Japanese culture and humor you'll most likely be unable to appreciate this movie at first. Much in the same vein as "Man bites Dog" or "Desperate Living", this movie seems intended to take people out of their comfort zone, but not so far as to take you to a place disturbing or repulsive; quite the opposite, as the movie slowly evolves into being more and more dream like. Is the young man acting out his desires in reality or is he living an illusion? There are many humorous and even heartwarming moments carefully placed along the surreal journey that is the young man's quest for truth and meaning.

Nihilistic really is the best way to describe this movie, which is the term I've read multiple times before watching it. People who say that are correct. The basic idea of the movie is that God appears before a high school boy in the middle of class as a miniature, balding man with a Kansai dialect. He tells our hero that the world is ending and the "evil one" has descended upon the earth.However, each time God appears before the boy, the story seems to change...Early on in the movie after telling his parents he'll live as he pleases, beating his classmate to near-death with a bat and kidnapping the girl of his dreams, it's obvious: our hero didn't see God. He's simply batshit crazy.So, the movie simply revolves around an insane boy and characters who seem to have no care in the world. At times, the movie can seem pretty depressing, just because of this strange, nihilistic feeling it gives off throughout.It isn't a horrible movie, but it will absolutely not appeal to everybody. The story is purposely all over the place to not even there it seems. It's almost as the writer threw down the strangest possible situations and mixed them all together. The result is actually really interesting though, and despite the poor filmography at times and absolutely insane story, it's a decent movie. It's almost hard to recommend it though, because it's a hard-to-explain film, for sure.

The marketing summary, and fairly high number of IMDb stars, for this movie enticed us to rent it. But we could only watch about an hour of it before realizing what a horrible waste of time it was. It's seemed like a good idea for a movie - a kid bored with life, suddenly starts receiving information that the world will end soon, from a weird little incarnation of God. He then takes action to accomplish some things that he will soon not be able to. I'm just trying to put in the minimum of ten lines required by IMDb folks, because this "movie" (not worthy of such a title) is certainly not worth more than a few words - like rubbish, waste, pathetic,etc. It's unfortunate that I can not give it less than a full star!