The Last Of Us ( 2023)

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Star – Pedro Pascal & Bella Ramsay My Rating *** Genre – Action/Drama Run Time – 10 x 50 Minutes. Certificate – 15 Country – U.S.A Awards 7 – Wins and 51 nominations = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = So, the Last of Us, the hugely successful 2023 zombie TV drama that swept America. It’s based on the popular video game of the same name from 2013 and picked up no fewer than 25 Emmy nominations, the first big and fresh post Covid TV show hit. It’s not just a killing zombie anyway possible splatter fest but stacked with emotion, pathos and relationships galore, and plenty of box ticking to cynically involve a wider audience as possible, the template for future big TV shows, I guess. The entertainment industry today is entertain but don’t challenge, alienate and offend. ===The Plot=== The basic set up is a fungus that can control insects to become cannibals has migrated to controlling humans brains turning them rabid and has swept the world killing pretty much everyone. 20-years on and the last of the regular humans are represented by the middle aged brooding Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) and a young feisty orphan girl called Ellie (Bella Ramsay) he has taken pity on escaping the fungi infested zombies. She is special (I won’t spoil it and tell you why) and he is damaged by twenty years of staying alive and he finds it hard to bond with people, his latest quest to find his bother Tommy (Gabriel Luna), the only guy he trusts left on Earth. In the process of that journey he has to take the girl to another city far away from the safety of a community they live in, battling various threats on the trek, from the infected to the super infected and other humans and their god, and bad, intentions. ===Results=== It’s not as good as they say although don’t let that put you off. It will appeal more to those who played the video game or represented by the oppressed in the show. It’s rather slow as we have a lot of back-story episodes to fill out the peripheral characters and ten long episodes of season one and you may reach for the fast-forward at times. I did. I invested a lot in this being as good as they say and feel a little bit ‘Meh’ about it now. But these episodes also feel like box–ticking to introduce gay characters and interracial relationships etc, where, perhaps, they are not really needed. They call it wokery here. Will those big budget TV shows like this only get made in the future if they only tick these boxes? It does ruin the flow of the show somewhat as they insist on middle-aged bearded men making out and young girls having a snog. Visually the abandoned vistas and cities of America are its appeal and keep you interested in the fragmented plotting moving through those vast panoramas as the actual combat scenes with the bad guys and zombies are few and far between. Don’t be wanting to watch it for that. It feels like the director is so languid with the plotting and characters that he knew from episode one he would get a second and third season so didn’t have to prove anything early on so building up the lesser characters for another day. A lot of big American shows can get cancelled at anytime so you may as well show some sort of confidence in your work to the paymasters that you will get another season, As I say it feels restrained by executives not wanting too many swear words and stereotypes but creating the stereotypes of the future here. I would have liked more from the zombies and less of the relationship stuff but the bond between the main two characters keeps you pulling for them. I have a feeling through that I won’t be watching season two next year as this is just not as good as it should be, in the same way Stranger Things fell away as the next seasons were green-lighted. ===RATINGS=== Imdb.com – 8.8 /10.0 (433k votes) Rottentomatos.com –96% critic’s approval Metacritic – 84% ===Trailer=== https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3581920/