Survive

A family of four enjoys a vacation aboard a yacht in Caribbean waters near Puerto Rico. After an incident where the mother almost drowns, the family celebrates a boy’s 13th birthday and takes a family photo. The peaceful moment is soon shattered by a violent sea storm that rocks the boat and knocks the family unconscious.

When the family rouses the next morning, they realize their lives have been turned upside down… literally. The boat now sits atop a cliff overlooking an expansive desert. Calling for help on the marine radio, the family reaches a scientist who tells them the Earth’s poles have reversed, and will reverse back in a matter of days.

Embarking on a perilous journey to find the scientist’s submersible craft, the family soon discovers that this new Earth is as strange, and deadly, as an alien planet.

Okay, I can suspend my disbelief with the best of them, but the nitpick alarm was blaring in the back of my head for much of the movie. First of all, what family takes their pre-teen son out on a boat in the middle of the ocean for his birthday? Maybe consider a backyard barbecue instead? Or Chuck E. Cheese?

Second, what would it do to human physiologically if the Earth’s poles were suddenly reversed? At the very least, wouldn’t it throw off the equilibrium? Produce headaches? Nausea? The characters in the movie carry on as if functioning in a reversed polarity world was an everyday occurrence.

The characters assume that because Earth reversed polarity, landmasses and oceans also traded places. I’m no science expert, but this concept is utterly daft. How can there be an even swap of land to water and vice versa when the Earth is roughly 70% water and 30% land? If I called my science geek buddy and told him this plot element, I’d bet all my money I’d get at least a snicker out of him, if not an outright guffaw.

Further stretching the film’s credulity are the large crabs, which pursue the survivors like a swarm of earth-bound locusts (for “Stargate SG-1” fans, the crabs rapidly advance like an army of Replicators). Is this behavior scientifically accurate? No idea. But, like the rest of the movie, the creepy crabs seem contrived; deposited into the story merely to create dramatic tension.

So, what kind of movie is “Survive”? Well, as can be inferred from the title, it’s a survival movie… as well as a disaster movie. It’s a family adventure flick with shades of TV’s “Land of the Lost,” sans dinos. It also has fantasy/sci-fi elements. Strangely, “Survive” has a slasher film subplot. Also, there are a few callbacks to “Jaws,” including an underwater shot of a woman swimming in the ocean and the name of the boat, Orca. The final shot of the demolished city recalls a long litany of post-apocalyptic movies ranging from the “Divergent” series (2014-2016) to “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004).

Though the story deals with polarity shifts, its plot is riddled with bizarre tonality shifts. It’s like the movie can’t make up its mind what it wants to be. Or, perhaps it seeks to attract a wider audience by mashing up elements from many genres into its narrative potpourri. But this plan backfires, leaving the audience out to sea.

Produced by several French companies, “Survive” noticeably lacks the sheen of a major Hollywood release. Its production elements are wildly uneven. Major debits include the subpar music and use of fade to black edits when transitioning from one scene to another, which makes “Survive” feel like a TV movie. To its credit, the movie boasts gorgeous desert locations and excellent cinematography.

The movie’s acting is also hit or miss. As would be expected, the adults turn in better performances than the kids, but they all do the best they can with remedial dialog. Oddly, the characters mostly speak English in the first half of the film, but mostly speak French in the second half. Maybe the effects of the polarity switch finally caught up with them.

Content of concern

OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE/VULGARITIES: It’s extremely disappointing that this ostensibly family film is pervaded with profanities. The movie is Not Rated, which probably has to do with its foreign production. However, judging by US Standards, this certainly would be an R-rated film. The movie’s cavalcade of curses includes: cr*p (1), h*ll (1), d*mn (1), sh*t (6), b*tch*ng (2), and the f-word (14). It also contains some irreverent speech, such as: G*d d*mn (1), My g*sh (1), Oh, My G*d (1), and J*sus (1).

NUDITY AND SEXUAL CONTENT: We witness a married couple kissing in one scene. Later, the husband sneaks into the room where his wife is showering; we see her naked back. As the husband flirts with her, the woman wraps a towel around her midsection. He jokingly asks if they should lock the kids outside, suggesting a coital episode. Two women are seen in bathing suits in several scenes. A woman wears a loose-fitting top that reveals her breasts every time she bends over… which is a lot. A man wears nothing but swim trunks in a few scenes.

VIOLENCE AND GRAPHIC CONTENT: There are several bloody and gory scenes. Early in the action, a woman stitches up a grisly cut on a man’s shoulder… the camera holds a little longer than it should on the festering wound. A young woman is shown vomiting in two scenes. Both kids are shown urinating (no nudity). In a protracted sequence, one man stabs another man in the chest with a long staff with a knife on the end. We see blood around the site of the impact, and blood issuing from the victim’s mouth. The aggressor stabs the man in the throat, and we hear gurgling sounds. The same man attacks a woman; he punches, slaps and chokes her, grabs her by the hair and slams her face into the floor. A young woman shoots the man with a flare gun.

A woman attacks a man that’s been stalking her family. In a gruesome display—that seems to last several minutes—the woman viciously stabs the man several dozens times. We see spatters of blood gushing into the air with each thrust. The next morning, we glimpse a trail of entrails leading to a fly-ridden corpse. The camera lingers on the man’s bloody, marred face for an uncomfortable interval. And, to complete the macabre scene, a crab skitters out of the man’s face, a la the scarab crawling out of Imhotep’s face in “The Mummy” (1999).

Speaking of crabs, there are several scenes where the creatures attack people. One crab clips a woman’s calf, which begins bleeding profusely. She pours gunpowder into the wound and ignites it with a lighter to cauterize the wound. In several scenes, people shoot the swarming crabs with shotguns, which appears to be an exercise in futility.

Spiritual Aspects

As would be expected from the paper-thin plot, there’s very little spiritual significance in “Survive.”

Right off the bat, the movie’s views on science become evident: we’re told that there have been five mass extinctions in Earth’s history and that the sixth is about to begin. This teases the movie’s close adherence to Darwin’s theory of “natural selection.”

When we first learn that Earth’s poles have been reversed, the father quips that the conspiracy theory nuts were actually right. The captain of the submersible vehicle confirms this, saying, “Maybe the Earth has decided to eliminate men before they destroy it.” This is a similar sentiment to what Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) says in “Jurassic Park” (1993), “Dinosaurs had their shot and nature selected them for extinction.”

This presupposes that Mother Nature has the power to wipe out entire species or all life on Earth at a whim (the recent, tragic, fires in Los Angeles would seem to be further evidence of this). However, God made the universe our planet inhabits, and nothing takes place apart from His knowledge or approval. Yes, disasters strike unexpectedly, and bad things happen to people (if you think you’ve got it rough, read the book of Job in the Bible) in our broken, fallen world.

But, long ago, God made a covenant with Noah that He would never again destroy the Earth with a flood, and sealed the promise with a rainbow (Genesis 9). Since God made Earth and everything in it (Genesis 1) and his handiwork is seen everywhere in nature (Romans 1:20), it is God, not Mother Nature, that has the ultimate control over our lives.

God’s divine plan, that we should be His sons and daughters, was established before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:3-5). If we repent and turn from our sinful ways (2 Chronicles 7:14) and confess our belief in Christ (Romans 10:9), we will have eternal life (John 3:16). No matter what happens to our mortal body, this is truly a blessed assurance.

So, in short, we shouldn’t live in fear of Mother Nature’s wrath. If it’s our time to go, it’s all part of God’s plan. And He has amazing things in store for us in Heaven… far beyond what we can possibly imagine.

“Survive” slyly weaves an environmental message into its narrative. As the movie opens, we see a discarded sandal at the bottom of the ocean. Later, when the ocean floor becomes a desert, we’re shown various ways humanity has impacted nature: we see a large dump of toxic waste, a crashed plane, cargo containers surrounded by strewn items, and sections of the desert littered with empty water bottles, kids’ desk chairs (strangely without legs), and toilet bowls.

In recent years, environmentalism has become less about preserving the Earth and more about advocacy and fearmongering. Some, who’ve decried humanity’s mistreatment of nature, have turned idealistic, and sometimes deceptive, precepts into a faux-religion. Some adherents of this belief system have made millions by spreading such doctrines of doom over the past 50+ years, i.e., “global warming/cooling” and “climate change” alarmism.

This doesn’t exempt us from doing our part in preserving the natural world around us. Indeed, God has tasked us with being good stewards of the land (Genesis 2:15). But what’s required is discernment, so we can differentiate between radical environmentalism and true conservationism.

As was mentioned earlier, there are two murders in the movie. God detests such vile actions. The Sixth Commandment (Exodus 20:13) clearly states, “You shall not murder.”

Early in the film, a birthday gift is given to a young boy… a Dominican bracelet that supposedly can protect the wearer from evil spirits. During a climactic scene, the boy places the bracelet on his sister’s wrist before she rushes off to save their mother. The rescue effort is successful, so the charm must work, right?

Any such magical talisman has its origins in evil. Ezekiel 13:18-20 underscores the dangers of placing magical bands on the wrists or arms. Psalms 31:6a bottom lines the subject, “I hate those who cling to worthless idols.”

The movie also makes commentary on how ill-prepared we—particularly our screen-bound young people—are as a society to deal with the exigencies of survival situations. In two instances, a teen girl, who is listening to music on her headphones, is completely oblivious to life-and-death emergencies happening nearby. Later, she forgets to tighten the lid on the canteen, which depletes the family’s supply of drinking water. This forces her younger brother to drink water out of a brackish pool, which makes him sick. At one point, the young woman loses hope and repeatedly yells, “We’re all going to die!” These examples beg the question, how well would civilization function in an apocalyptic world without Siri to provide practical guidance?

For the most part, the movie exhibits good parenting. A father patiently teaches his son how to cast the line from a fishing pole. The son expresses confidence in his father’s ability to get them out of their predicament. He quotes one of his dad’s favorite sayings, “Every problem has a solution.”

The mother’s unwavering focus is the safety of her kids. She’s even willing to sacrifice herself for them. In a movie bereft of meaning, this heartening example of maternal love serves as its saving grace.

Final Thoughts

The most merciful aspect of this movie is its 90-minute runtime. Adding another half hour to this predictable, irredeemable mess would’ve been a special form of torture.

So, what does the movie accomplish? In its attempt at cramming tropes from many different genres into its story, the movie ends up saying nothing. Due to its incessant profanities and graphic elements, it isn’t even an enjoyable popcorn flick. It’s the type of substandard story that gives B-movies a bad name. In fact, it’s more like a C-movie (C for Crabs).

It’s a shame to think of all the good movies out there that never got made because of financing, when a meaningless piece of schlock like this gets released. Maybe in a reverse-polarity world Darwin’s theories are correct. As this movie proves—in terms of its characters, story, and overall production—there is such a thing as “survival of the unfittest.”

• Violence: Very Heavy
• Vulgar/Crude language: Heavy
• Profane language: Moderate
• Wokeism: Moderate
• Nudity: Mild
• Occult: Mild
• Sex: Minor
• Drugs/Alcohol: None

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.