The apparent set-up of this movie is that, hypothetically, nuclear war is coming, and a class of 21 students must decide which 10 of them are most worthy of being saved in a bunker that holds only 10. This is then tried in three different iterations.

The visual dimension of the movie is great. Shot in Indonesia, there are beautiful locations everywhere and the entire movie looks really good. That's where the good news stop, because unfortunately the story and premise and set-up of the movie are all terribly executed. By the end, it is quite clear that the movie has no interest in philosophy or logic or how to make hard moral/logical choices.

In a SERIOUS situation, such choices would have to be made, but the message of the movie is that of privileged white people living in a Plato's cave, blissfully unaware of reality: "Ooooh, such questions are unsolvable! Every choice is as bad as any other! Wah, wah wah!" And the insufferable smugness with which the movie pushes this conclusion is just, well, insufferable.

When the teacher sets up the situation, two students (incl. the top student, who is clearly supposed to be right about everything) refuses to participate in it right off the bat. The moral of the movie being that such a set-up is unsolvable and meaningless, but any serious philosophy student (to say nothing of a serious philosophy teacher) would know that such a set-up would, in a real case of impending nuclear Armageddon, need to be accepted and dealt with. Being outraged about how emotionally offensive the situation is, is idiotic and precisely the wrong reaction. The whole point of such an exercise in philosophy and logic is to overcome that emotional outrage.

But the movie of course continues this way. Once two attempts have been made at a logical way of choosing ten people (one being an unpredictable "wild card", a.k.a. an easy way for the writer/director to cheat),and failed, the top student then takes charge and makes all the wrong choices; chooses all the ones least likely to survive, prosper and procreate, apparently because she has this thing for imperfections. It is completely preposterous, and while this bunch survives the bunker, in part because of the fine wine they have (*groan*),they also choose to kill themselves once they get out. It is preposterous several times over!! The movie is changing its premise as it goes, making the choices of the 10 be about the stay in the bunker ("oooh, it's all about the JOURNEY, not the goal!"),rather than the chances of survival after-wards.

And the final nail in the coffin is at the end, when it is revealed that the teacher has personal, emotional reasons for his entire thought experiment, AND we don't hear whether he even lets the students (who rebelled against his ideas) pass the course or not!

Ultimately, it is a movie which pretends to be about ideas, but is really about characters, and not in a successful way, either. Just about all of the interesting possibilities of such a set-up are completely dropped on the floor. As for the characters, they all have model looks, and two of the guys, politically correctly, are gay (with a third one being given gayness in one iteration of the thought experiment - with all these gay guys, why not at least one lesbian, now that we're being so PC?). It is a story that conforms in so many ways to so many youth culture clichés that the writer/director's claim that he made this movie to showcase young people's curiosity (about what, exactly?) rings awful hollow. The only thing this movie is good for, besides its visual spectacle, is to debate its myriad shortcomings in failing to accomplish what it presented itself as setting out to do.

Fail, fail, fail.

One of the moral views that is communicated very often in American pop culture is that sacrificing one life to save a bunch of other lives cannot be justified. Can NOT be justified. Because sacrificing one life is still murder. This is just the worst kind of pseudo-philosophical claptrap. It is completely obvious to any intelligent human being that you must always minimize losses. Choosing for five people to die instead of one (all other things being equal) is OF COURSE the wrong choice. But this movie perpetuates the former view, even as the top student herself (who also has this view) violates this principle in the beginning by leaving the teacher to die outside the bunker. So this movie offers nothing new of any kind, no shred of an idea out of the ordinary, conformist, vulgar American high school style of thinking.

It is a terrible movie, drenched, at best, in all-round mediocrity.

This review contains spoiler.

Here is what I think this movie wanted to be: A very smart, very deep, very artistic film conveying a super important message.

And here is what I think it turned out to be: A philosophy professor tries to prove some point to his students by carrying out a thought-experiment. The class faces a nuclear apocalypse while having a bunker that would keep them safe until the radiation is gone. Sadly, this bunker can accommodate only 10 of them, so they have to decide who lives and who dies based on some information on each of them written on cards of which everyone picked one randomly. Well, the message I think they intended to tell is: People are more than what they appear to be. Wow. Every second Disney movie tells the same, only those are fun to watch. Besides, they are discussing logic in class and they are supposed to carry out the experiment by using logic. That part is an epic fail too. I mean, I understand that it's a thought-experiment, but does it really have to be so terribly stupid? Well, let's say we overlook all the idiot stuff they come up with as the circumstances of a nuclear holocaust, it's only in their heads, right? Why not form it as they want. But. Many of the other decisions they have to make and could be really logical, are just, well, blehh... Just one example: this person has absolutely no usable knowledge for us but she has gold. Then, she's in! I think I don't have to explain what would most probably happen to her in real life... And then, the final experiment Petra comes up with is just the cheesiest thing ever. And when you think it can't get worse, it turns out that the whole game was just a plot of the professor to separate top student, unsmiling, uptight, totally unlikable Petra from her boyfriend because he has a crush on her. And when he fails, he kills himself.

So, I think this is how bad it is. 2 hours of face-palm, eye-rolling and being mad. There is one bright spot in the dark though, namely the scenario Chips comes up with in the end. Now, that's logic.

The beginning is interesting, I would say until the second half. Nothing wildly exciting, has some nice little twist in there but very minimal. It is shot in a dreamy kind of atmosphere. For some completely non-constructive and no where plot related reason the class is in Jakarta (pronounced Yanky style Djakardda) and you can tell this by the teak hardwood furniture and the crickets in the back (duh). The second half is hopeless. All the close ups of clearasil clean pouts, island shots and fuzzy broken sunlight (a lot if it) can't disguise the mouth-breathy throaty delivered "philosophy" to be no more than pretentious romanticism. The ending is a joke. Or maybe it is 'so deep' we all didn't get it. I give it a 5 for the first half.