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■ The Last of Us
Now that HBO’s second season of The Last of Us ended, I have to say, it was truly, truly, truly terrible. This is because it was very unsatisfying, and we’re only one third of the story. To be honest, I have no interesting in continuing the story, through Abby’s point of view in Season 3 in 2027 or 2028. After Abby’s story, that’s not even the end, you have to wait another year or so to get the full story in Season 4.

The Dog Stars (2026)

I saw and wrote this article on the 2026 post-apocalyptic action The Dog Stars in September, but sort of forgot about it (it was “forgettable” as I mentioned in the final sentence). Now that the film is available on streaming, I thought I’ll finally publish this. The Bluray, I believe it has a release date of December, right before the Christmas holiday.

Anyway, the film was produced and directed by Sci-Fi legend Ridley Scott (who is responsible for Alien and Blade Runner) and based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Peter Heller.

I think it has a good story, but suffers from the very slow pacing early in the film. They only showed you the aftermath, but it seems a flu pandemic wiped out like 99% of the population and the only survivors are either survivalists or raiders. The main character (Hig) is a mechanic/pilot who lives in the middle of nowhere with his survivalist friend played by Josh Brolin.

Brolin is a no-nonsense, shoot ‘em first kind of elite sniper guy. The contrast between the young pilot and old-man-sniper is just so frustrating. How the heck did the two odd couple end up living together is beyond me.

Hig still have hope for humanity, and after his dog was killed, he’s determined to find the SOS message he heard while on a flight. On the way there, his plane crashed and he meets a farmer and his daughter in a remote farm. It’s weird, but they fast become friends and it’s clear to me that the daughter was the love interest (played by Andie MacDowell’s daughter Margaret Qualley – who we last saw in the horror film, The Substance).

They all work together to fix the small Cessna plane and clear enough runway for the plane to take off… and just in time as a group of Indian raiders found them. They barely escape.

It seems like everywhere they go, whatever is left of the world, are full of danger. Eventually, Hig returns home with the farmer and his daughter only to discover the place was attacked.

At times, it seems extremely cartoonist – particularly when they were trapped at the Grand Junction Airport. It was scary, but also kind of laughable. The will-they-or-won’t-they heart lost and broken and healing storyline has been done before. I also felt like the movie and story reminded me of other post-apocalyptic films. 28 Years Later… and The Last of Us comes to mind, as far as recent films dealing with such matter. It just seems like this is a forgettable film.

Hope (호프) (2026)

I think this film has a terrible name. It’s a South Korean film called Hope and it came out in theaters in September (around the same time as Dog Stars). I know a lot of critics really like the film, but I just found it was all over the place. There’s about four different movie genre in this film, and while it’s not all bad, I just wish it picked a lane.

To me, the best part of the movie is at the beginning. It starts off like a true crime/murder mystery on a rural town of Hope. A cop is investigating a dead cow in the road. At first, they thought it was a tiger or a wild animal. As the film goes on, you realize it’s something… much bigger. That’s the part I liked, the unknowing. The movie doesn’t show you the creature, instead you see a something thrown in the air from behind a building.

I think I checked out when they show you the creature… and it became a bit of a horror movie. Then you see more creatures and it becomes an action/chase film. It was obvious that these creatures were aliens from another planet… so the film becomes a Sci-Fi film. What’s weird is that these creatures are all very different from each other.

As the movie goes on, you find out more and more about these aliens. Once they translate and you can understand these aliens, they’re smart and they’re sentient. I don’t know, maybe the movie just worked better if I didn’t know anything about these aliens.

I always judge a movie is if I love it enough to buy it on Bluray, and I’ll probably skip on this one. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Asian Invasion movie, but this Sci-Fi film just didn’t work for me.