Saturday, June 22, 2013

Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

Chris, his girlfriend Natalie, and their friend Amanda go to Russia to visit Chris's older brother, Paul.   Paul just met Yuri, an Extreme Tour guide, who can take them on a tour of Pripyat, the town next to Chernobyl. Hurrah! Let's tour the radioactive death trap!

Also on the tour are Zoe and Michael who have been traveling through Europe. Everything is fun and games - or as much as it can be at the scene of a town that was abandoned due to a tragic  nuclear reactor meltdown - until they get back to their van to find the wires have been destroyed.

How did this happen? Does someone want to do them harm?  Could it have been some kind of animal? Those would be the normal questions people would ask. But as night falls the group  just talks about whose fault it is that they're stuck in the radioactive abandoned town.

The nearest checkpoint is 13 miles away and Yuri states it is not safe to go out at night. So you know it's not going to end well when Yuri wanders off into the dark with a gun and Chris follows. Soon Yuri has disappeared, and Chris is going into shock from his badly injured, profusely bleeding leg.  Natalie feels it's time to state the obvious and says Chris needs to go a hospital right away. Really?

Since Chris can't walk, the next day some of the gang decide to hoof it back to the checkpoint for help. They stumble upon a parking lot full of cars and find the exact cables that will fit their van. Hurrah!  They hurry back to the van.... well, they said they were going right back to the van, but it was light out and now it's pitch black. What the hell?  Just another in the bad line of decisions these idiots make. Or maybe it's just a problem with continuity.

The kids in this movie are the stupidest tourists ever. They ask stupid questions and do stupid things. Here's an example of their lack of cranial functioning:
  • I'll go on the extreme tour as long as it's safe. (I guess they don't know what extreme means.)
  • We paid to see the town so you'd better get us in there, (said after Yuri is denied entry at the checkpoint which is strange since he's never been denied entry before)
  • Why is it so quiet here? (Yes because usually the abandoned radioactive town would be bustling.)
  • Yesterday I thought I saw a C.H.U.D. in the window of one of the buildings. I think I have a photo of it but it didn't seem important enough to mention.
  • Keeping the light on in the van so whatever destroyed the wires can see us them
  • Keeping the light on in the van when trying to see what's outside in the pitch dark
  • Kicking the van windows as a method of fighting off the dogs when the windows are the only things protecting you from said dogs
  • Tenderly approaching the little weird kid in the middle of an abandoned radioactive town after something/someone has killed your tour guide.
Now you just know this isn't going to end well. But I guess they should be happy as this definitely  qualifies as an extreme tour.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for saving me the effort of trying to watch it. Can't lie, when the previews came up I was a little curious (could it be a sudden resurrection of Cold War style propaganda?)--but alas...it's Hollywood's answer to why birth rates are dropping.

Chris Jart said...

Ha! Yeah, I was curious about it too. It seemed like it was going to be another found footage movie, but they only did the point of view camcorder bit at the beginning of the film. It was another movie where the characters are annoying and do stupid things. I mean, if the military checkpoint refuses to allow you in, and you're in a foreign country heading to an abandoned disaster area, it'd be best to just skip it.