After the Dark (2014) a "sci-fi/fantasy" movie about the end of the world where none of the sci-fi/fantasy elements actually happen and the world is not ending. The only thing at risk is whether or not the students will get an A+ or maybe as low as a C. I know, high stakes at play here!
It's basically about a final exam, where a high school philosophy class that apparently is full of the greatest students ever does something that I did in middle school...a thought experiment where they imagined an apocalypse where there was a bunker that could fit 10 people, but there were 21 people. Each person was assigned traits (one guy was a carpenter, but was sterile, for instance) and they had to decide who gets to live to repopulate the earth and rebuild society. The teacher keeps throwing curve-balls at them to make them fail, so they have to redo the experiment to try to get it right.
I had prepared myself for the fact that this was just going to be a bunch of basic philosophy nonsense with no real threat involved. I accepted that and watched the film. About midway through I actually found myself intrigued, despite the over-dramatization of students playing out the roles of apocalypse survivors.
My big problem came later...when the students just decided to stop playing by the rules. Heck, if they could do that, why didn't they from the start? One guy was assigned the status that he was gay and would NOT have sex with a woman to repopulate the earth...and then later he just ditches the card info and decides to be straight. Info they learn in one test carries over to the future tests...which makes no sense since each situation should reset the "characters" minds. You can't die in an apocalypse AND remember details from it for the next apocalypse. Somehow, all of this is okay with the teacher who had been working so hard to make them fail. Heck, the problem existed early...since some of the cards would say that a person has some skill...but will die of an undiagnosed cancer in three years. How in the heck could they know that at the time of choosing who would go in the bunker? That is info that no thought experiment should include, since it requires supernatural powers. Eventually the experiment just peters out because of some really stupid rationalizing that would in a real world situation doom the entire human race, while the students just rewrite the rules as they go.
In the end they introduce a twist that was meant to explain some motivations...but it just fell flat for me because I didn't care about the characters and wanted the film to be about how to actually decide who would be chosen to live in an apocalypse.
Oh yeah...they never bother to tell us whether or not the students pass or fail the test.
Ultimately, this movie is asking a very different question than what is presented to the students. The problem is that the answer for our daily lives is certainly not the same answer as to what would work in an apocalypse scenario. In an apocalypse, you don't pick the poet over the scientist because the poet will entertain you in the bunker, and you can't just wish away your problems.