"The Postman" represents the total squandering of 80 million bucks by people who should've known better. With this turkey and "Waterworld" back-to-back, somebody may have finally wised up and driven a wedge between big budgets and Kevin Costner's crummy, dated, post-apocalyptic ideas. (His more recent success, "Open Range," is carried out on a more modest scale.)
As hokey as it is overlong and dull, "The Postman" presents a post-nuclear-war 2013 in which, apparently, not a stitch of 20th-century clothing has survived. Everybody wears outfits that look homemade from drab gray and brown rags and tags; not one leather jacket, or sweater, or red windbreaker, or even a pair of jeans, is anywhere to be seen. Even the marauding army of the villain (idiotically named Bethlehem, as in "What rough beast," etc.) aren't dressed in camouflage. If the military's entire wardrobe perished, then how did their guns and ammo survive? It's also unbelievably inconsistent that the survivors, who sing '60s pop songs as though they're ancient folk tunes, don't recognize the name of Richard Starkey (aka Ringo Starr) when it comes up.
All told, an amazing colossal waste of time, talent, and money, good only for unintended and derisive laughter, and as more evidence that "Dances with Politically Correct Overlong Incredibly Boring Wolves" was a fluke.
As hokey as it is overlong and dull, "The Postman" presents a post-nuclear-war 2013 in which, apparently, not a stitch of 20th-century clothing has survived. Everybody wears outfits that look homemade from drab gray and brown rags and tags; not one leather jacket, or sweater, or red windbreaker, or even a pair of jeans, is anywhere to be seen. Even the marauding army of the villain (idiotically named Bethlehem, as in "What rough beast," etc.) aren't dressed in camouflage. If the military's entire wardrobe perished, then how did their guns and ammo survive? It's also unbelievably inconsistent that the survivors, who sing '60s pop songs as though they're ancient folk tunes, don't recognize the name of Richard Starkey (aka Ringo Starr) when it comes up.
All told, an amazing colossal waste of time, talent, and money, good only for unintended and derisive laughter, and as more evidence that "Dances with Politically Correct Overlong Incredibly Boring Wolves" was a fluke.